WOMAN  TENDERFOOT 


GRACE  GALL ATIN  SETON-THOMPSON 


Dcublcday,  Phge  and  Co.,  New  York 


f 


Copyright,  1900,  by 
Grace  Oallatin  Seton-Cbornpson 


In  this  Book  the  full-page  Drawings 
were  made  by  Ernest  Seton-Thomp- 
son,  G.  Wright  and  E.  M.  Ashe,  and  the 
Marginals  by  S.  N.  Abbott.  The  cover, 
title-page  and  general  make-up  were  de- 
signed by  the  Author.  Thanks  are  due 
to  Miller  Christy  for  proof  revision,  and 
to  A.  A.  Anderson  for  valuable  sugges- 
tions on  camp  outfitting, 


THIS  BOOK  IS  A  TRIBUTE  TO 
THE  WEST. 

I  have  used  many  Western  phrases  as 
necessary  to  the  Western  setting. 

I  can  only  add  that  the  events  related 
really  happened  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains of  the  United  States  and  Canada ; 
and  this  is  why,  being  a  woman,  I  wanted 
to  tell  about  them,  in  the  hope  that  some 
gotng-to-Europe-in-the-summer-woman 
may  be  tempted  to  go  West  instead. 

G.  G.  S.-T. 

New  York  City,  September  1st,  1900. 


CONTENTS 

i         The  Why  of  It    . 

ii       Outfit   and    Advice    for  the 

Woman-who-goes-hunting- 

with-her-husband     .  .          17 

in      The    First    Plunge    of  the 

Woman  Tenderfoot  .  .     59 
iv       Which  Treats  of  the  Imps 

and  My  Elk  73 

v        Lost  in  the  Mountains  .     97 

vi      The  Cook         .         .  .113 

vii     Among  the  Clouds       .  .129 

vin    At  Yeddars       .         .  .       143 

ix      My  Antelope       .         .  .161 


xn 
xin 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


183 
215 
245 
265 


A  Mountain  Drama 

What  I  Know  about  Wahb 

of  the  Bighorn  Basin 
The  Dead  Hunt       .          . 
Just  Rattlesnakes          . 
xiv    As  Cowgirl       .         .         . 
xv     The  Sweet  Pea  Lady    . 

Some  one  Else's  Mountain 
Sheep     .         ...       291 
xvi    In    which    the     Tenderfoot 

Learns  a  New  Trick  .  313 

xvn  Our  Mine          .         .  335 

xvm  The  Last  Word   .         .         .  355 


A  LIST  OF 
FULL-PAGE  DRAWINGS.  | 

F 
PAGE 

Costume  for  cross  saddle  riding     .     25 

Tears  starting  from  your  smoke-in- 
flamed eyes  ....  41 

Saddle  cover  for  wet  weather 
Policeman's  equestrian  rain  coat     51 

She  was  postmistress  twice  a  week     77 
The  trail  was  lost  in  a  gully .         .104 

Whetted  one  to  a  razor  edge  and 
threw  it  into  a  tree  where  it  stuck 
quivering  .  .  .121 

Not  three  hundred  yards  away  .  .  . 
were  two  bull  elk  in  deadly  combat  139 


A  LIST  OF 
FULL-PAGE  DRAWINGS. 

F 

0  PAGB 

T 

Down  the  path  came  two  of  the 
prettiest  Blacktails      .         .         .   151 

A  misstep  would  have  sent  us  fly- 
ing over  the  cliff    .         .         .166 

Thus  I  fought  through  the  afternoon  197 

We  whizzed   across   the   railroad 
track  in  front  of  the  Day  Express  222 

Five  feet  full  in  front  of  us,  they 
pulled  their  horses  to  a  dead  stop  239 

The  coyotes  made  savage  music    .  253 
The  horrid  thing  was  ready  for  me  260 


A  LIST  OF 
FULL-PAGE  DRAWINGS. 

PAGE 

I  started  on  a  gallop,  swinging  one 
arm 281 

The  warm  beating  heart  of  a 
mountain  sheep  .  .  .  304 

I  could  not  keep  away  from  his  hoofs  309 

We  started  forward,  just  as  the  rear 
wheels  were  hovering  over  the  edge  327 

"  You  better  not  sit  down  on  that 
kaig  .  .  .  It's  nitroglycerine  "  .  345 

The  tunnel  caused  its  roof  to  cave 
in  close  behind  me  .  .  349 

A  mountain  lion  sneaked  past  my 
saddle-pillowed  head  .  .  .  359 


I. 


THE  WHY  OF  IT. 


I. 


HEORETICALLY,    I 

have  always  agreed  with 
the  Quaker  wife  who  re- 
formed her  husband — 
"Whither  thou  goest, 
I  go  also,  Dicky  dear." 
thou   doest,   I    do   also,  Dicky 
So   when,  the    year   after   our 


What 
dear." 

marriage,  Nimrod  announced  that  the 
mountain  madness  was  again  working 
in  his  blood,  and  that  he  must  go  West 
and  take  up  the  trail  for  his  holiday,  I 
tucked  my  summer-watering-place-and- 
Eu  rope-fly  ing-trip  mind  away  (not  with- 


out  regret,  I  confess)  and  cautiously 
tried  to  acquire  a  new  vocabulary  and 
some  new  ideas. 

Of  course,  plenty  of  women  have 
handled  guns  and  have  gone  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains  on  hunting  trips — 
but  they  were  not  among  my  friends. 
However,  my  imagination  was  good, 
and  the  outfit  I  got  together  for  my 
first  trip  appalled  that  good  man,  my 
husband,  while  the  number  of  things  I 
had  to  learn  appalled  me. 

In  fact,  the  first  four  months  spent 
'  Out  West '  were  taken  up  in  learning 
how  to  ride,  how  to  dress  for  it,  how  to 
shoot,  and  how  to  philosophise,  each  of 
which  lessons  is  a  story  in  itself.  But 
briefly,  in  order  to  come  to  this  story, 
I  must  have  a  side  talk  with  the 
Woman-who-goes-hunting-with-her-hus- 
band.  Those  not  interested  please  omit 
the  next  chapter. 


II. 

OUTFIT  AND   ADVICE 

FOR   THE  WOMAN-WHO- 

GOES-HUNTING-WITH- 

HER-HUSBAND. 


II. 


S  it  really  so  that  most 
women  say  no  to  camp 
life  because  they  are 
afraid  of  being  uncom- 
fortable and  looking 
unbeautiful?  There  is 
no  reason  why  a  woman  should  make 
a  freak  of  herself  even  if  she  is  going  to 
rough  it ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  do  not 
rough  it,  I  go  for  enjoyment  and  leave 
out  all  possible  discomforts.  There  is 
no  reason  why  a  woman  should  be  more 
uncomfortable  out  in  the  mountains, 
with  the  wild  west  wind  for  companion 


and  the  big  blue  sky  for  a  roof,  than  sit- 
ting in  a  10  by  12  whitewashed  bedroom 
of  the  summer  hotel  variety,  with  the 
tin  roof  to  keep  out  what  air  might  be 
passing.  A  possible  mosquito  or  gnat 
in  the  mountains  is  no  more  irritating 
than  the  objectionable  personality  that 
is  sure  to  be  forced  upon  you  every 
hour  at  the  summer  hotel.  The  usual 
walk,  the  usual  drive,  the  usual  hop, 
the  usual  novel,  the  usual  scandal, — 
in  a  word,  the  continual  consciousness 
of  self  as  related  to  dress,  to  manners, 
to  position,  which  the  gregarious  living 
of  a  hotel  enforces — are  all  right  enough 
once  in  a  while;  but  do  you  not  get 
enough  of  such  life  in  the  winter  to  last 
for  all  the  year  ? 

Is  one  never  to  forget  that  it  is  not 
proper  to  wear  gold  beads  with  crape  ? 
Understand,  I  am  not  to  be  set  down 


w 

'w      as  having  any  charity  for  the  ignoramus 
8      who  would  wear  that  combination,  but 

\  A 

I  wish  to  record  the  fact  that  there  are 
times,  under  the  spell  of  the  West,  when 
I  simply  do  not  care  whether  there  are 
such  things  as  gold  beads  and  crape; 
when  the  whole  business  of  city  life,  the 
music,  arts,  drama,  the  pleasant  friends, 
equally  with  the  platitudes  of  things  and 
people  you  care  not  about  —  civiliza- 
tion, in  a  word — when  all  these  fade 
away  from  my  thoughts  as  far  as  geo- 
graphically they  are,  and  in  their  place 
comes  the  joy  of  being  at  least  a  healthy, 
if  not  an  intelligent,  animal.  It  is  a  plea- 
sure to  eat  when  the  time  comes  around, 
a  good  old-fashioned  pleasure,  and  you 
need  no  dainty  serving  to  tempt  you.  It 
is  another  pleasure  to  use  your  muscles, 
to  buffet  with  the  elements,  to  endure 
long  hours  of  riding,  to  run  where  walk- 


ing  would  do,  to  jump  an  obstacle  in- 
stead of  going  around  it,  to  return, 
physically  at  least,  to  your  pinafore  days 
when  you  played  with  your  brother 
Willie.  Red  blood  means  a  rose-colored 
world.  Did  you  feel  like  that  last  sum- 
mer at  Newport  or  Narragansett  *? 

So  enough ;  come  with  me  and  learn 
how  to  be  vulgarly  robust. 

Of  course  one  must  have  clothes  and 
personal  comforts,  so,  while  we  are  still 
in  the  city  humor,  let  us  order  a  habit 
suitable  for  riding  astride.  Whipcord, 
or  a  closely  woven  homespun,  in  some 
shade  of  grayish  brown  that  harmonizes 
with  the  landscape,  is  best.  Corduroy 
is  pretty,  if  you  like  it,  but  rather  clumsy. 
Denham  will  do,  but  it  wrinkles  and 
becomes  untidy.  Indeed  it  has  been 
my  experience  that  it  is  economy  to 
buy  the  best  quality  of  cloth  you  can 


afford,  for  then  the  garment  always 
keeps  its  shape,  even  after  hard  wear, 
and  can  be  cleaned  and  made  ready 
for' another  year,  and  another,  and  an- 
other. You  will  need  it,  never  fear. 
Once  you  have  opened  your  ears,  "  the 
Red  Gods  "  will  not  cease  to  "  call  for 
you." 

In  Western  life  you  are  on  and  off 
your  horse  at  the  change  of  a  thought. 
Your  horse  is  not  an  animate  exercise- 
maker  that  John  brings  around  for  a 
couple  of  hours  each  morning;  he  is 
your  companion,  and  shares  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  your  life.  You  even  consult 
him  on  occasion,  especially  on  matters 
relating  to  the  road.  Therefore  your 
costume  must  look  equally  well  on  and 
off  the  horse.  In  meeting  this  require- 
ment, my  woes  were  many.  I  struggled 
valiantly  with  everything  in  the  market, 


and  finally,  from  five  varieties  of  di- 
vided skirts  and  bloomers,  the  follow- 
ing practical  and  becoming  habit  was 
evolved. 

N 

I  speak  thus  modestly,  as  there  is  now 
a  trail  of  patterns  of  this  habit  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  coast.  Wher-  ^ 
ever  it  goes,  it  makes  converts,  especial- 
ly among  the  wives  of  army  officers  at 
the  various  Western  posts  where  we 
have  been — for  the  majority  of  women 
in  the  West,  and  I  nearly  said  all  the 
sensible  ones,  now  ride  astride. 

When  off  the  horse,  there  is  nothing 
about  this  habit  to  distinguish  it  from 
any  trim  golf  suit,  with  the  stitching 
up  the  left  front  which  is  now  so  popu- 
lar. When  on  the  horse,  it  looks,  as 
some  one  phrased  it,  as  though  one  were 
riding  side  saddle  on  both  sides.  This 
is  accomplished  by  having  the  fronts  of 


COSTUME  FOR  CROSS  SADDLE  RIDING. 
Designed  by  the  Author, 


the  skirt  double,  free  nearly  to  the  waist, 
and,  when  off  the  horse,  fastened  by  pat- 
ent hooks.  The  back  seam  is  also  open, 
faced  for  several  inches,  stitched  and 
closed  by  patent  fasteners.  Snug 
bloomers  of  the  same  material  are  worn 
underneath.  The  simplicity  of  this 
habit  is  its  chief  charm ;  there  is  no 
superfluous  material  to  sit  upon — oh, 
the  torture  of  wrinkled  cloth  in  the 
divided  skirt! — and  it  does  not  fly  up 
even  in  a  strong  wind,  if  one  knows 
how  to  ride.  The  skirt  is  four  inches 
from  the  ground — it  should  not  bell 
much  on  the  sides — and  about  three  and 
a  half  yards  at  the  bottom,  which  is 
finished  with  a  five-inch  stitched  hem. 

Any  style  of  jacket  is  of  course  suita- 
ble. One  that  looks  well  on  the  horse 
is  tight  fitting,  with  postilion  back,  short 
on  hips,  sharp  pointed  in  front,  with 


single-breasted  vest  of  reddish  leather 
(the  habit  material  of  brown  whipcord), 
fastened  by  brass  buttons,  leather  collar 
and  revers,  and  a  narrow  leather  band  on 
the  close-fitting  sleeves.  A  touch  of 
leather  on  the  skirt  in  the  form  of  a 
patch  pocket  is  harmonious,  but  any 
extensive  leather  trimming  on  the  skirt 
makes  it  unnecessarily  heavy. 

A  suit  of  this  kind  should  be  as  irre- 
proachable in  fit  and  finish  as  a  tailor 
can  make  it.  This  is  true  economy,  for 
when  you  return  in  the  autumn  it  is 
ready  for  use  as  a  rainy-day  costume. 

Once  you  have  your  habit,  the  next 
purchase  should  be  stout,  heavy  soled 
boots,  13  or  14  inches  high,  which 
will  protect  the  leg  in  walking  and 
from  the  stirrup  leather  while  riding. 
One  needs  two  felt  hats  (never  straw), 
one  of  good  quality  for  sun  or  rain, 


with  large  firm  brim.  This  is  impor- 
tant, for  if  the  brim  be  not  firm  the 
elements  will  soon  reduce  it  to  raglike 
limpness  and  it  will  flap  up  and  down 
in  your  face  as  you  ride.  This  can  be 
borne  with  composure  for  five  or  ten 
minutes,  but  not  for  days  and  weeks  at 
a  time.  The  other  felt  hat  may  be  as 
small  and  as  cheap  as  you  like.  Only 
see  that  it  combines  the  graces  of  com- 
fort and  becomingness.  It  is  for  even- 
ings, and  sunless  rainless  days.  A  small 
brown  felt,  with  a  narrow  leather  band, 
gilt  buckle,  and  a  twist  of  orange  veil- 
ing around  the  crown,  is  pretty  for  the 
whipcord  costume. 

One  can  do  a  wonderful  amount  of 
smartening  up  with  tulle,  hat  pins,  belts, 
and  fancy  neck  ribbons,  all  of  which 
comparatively  take  up  no  room  and  add 
no  weight,  always  the  first  consideration. 


Be  sure  you  supply  yourself  with  a  re- 
serve of  hat  pins.  Two  devices  by 
which  they  may  be  made  to  stay  in  the 
hat  are  here  shown.  The  spiral  can  be 
given  to  any  hat  pin.  The  chain  and 
small  brooch  should  be  used  if  the  hat 
pin  is  of  much  value. 

At  this  point,  if  any  man,  a  reviewer 
perhaps,  has  delved  thus  far  into  the 
mysteries  of  feminine  outfit,  he  will 
probably  remark,  "  Why  take  a  hat  pin 
of  much  value1?"  to  which  I  reply, 
"  Why  not  ?  Can  you  suggest  any 
more  harmless  or  useful  vent  for  woman's 
desire  to  ornament  herself?  And  un- 
less you  want  her  to  be  that  honor  of 
horrors,  a  strong-minded  woman,  do  you 
think  you  can  strip  her  for  three  months 
of  all  her  gewgaws  and  still  have  her 
filled  with  the  proper  desire  to  be  pleas- 
ing in  your  eyes  ?  No ;  better  let  her 


have  the  hat  pins  —  and  you  know  they 
really  are  useful — and  then  she  will  dress 
up  to  those  hat  pins,  if  it  is  only  with  a 
fresh  neck  ribbon  and  a  daisy  at  her  belt." 
I  had  a  man's  saddle,  with  a  narrow 
tree  and  high  pommel  and  cantle,  such 
as  is  used  out  West,  and  as  I  had  not 
ridden  a  horse  since  the  hazy  days  of  my 
infancy,  I  got  on  the  huge  creature's  back 
with  everything  to  learn.  Fear  envel- 
oped me  as  in  a  cloud  during  my  first 
ride,  and  the  possibilities  of  the  little 
cow  pony  they  put  me  on  seemed  more 
awe-inspiring  than  those  of  a  locomo- 
tive. But  I  had  been  reading  Professor 
William  James  and  acquired  from  him 
the  idea  (I  hope  I  do  not  malign  him) 
that  the  accomplishment  of  a  thing  de- 
pends largely  upon  one's  mental  attitude, 
and  this  was  mine  all  nicely  taken  —  in 
New  York :  — 


•^ 

"This  thing  has  been  done  before,  and  ^ 
done  well.  Good;  then  I  can  do  it,  and  f? 
mjoy  it  too." 

I  particularly  insisted  upon  the  latter  | 
clause — in  the  East.  This  formula  is 
applicable  in  any  situation.  I  never 
should  have  gotten  through  my  West-  <jj 
ern  experiences  without  it,  and  I  ad- 
vise you,  my  dear  Woman-who-goes- 
hunting-with-her -husband,  to  take  a 
large  stock  of  it  made  up  and  ready  for 
use.  There  is  one  other  rule  for  your 
conduct,  if  you  want  to  be  a  success: 
think  what  you  like,  but  unless  it  is 
pleasant,  don't  say  it. 

Is  it  better  to  ride  astride  ?  I  will 
not  carry  the  battle  ground  into  the 
East,  although  even  here  I  have  my 
opinion ;  but  in  the  West,  in  the  moun- 
tains, there  can  be  no  question  that  it  is 
the  only  way.  Here  is  an  example  to 


illustrate :  Two  New  York  women, 
mother  and  daughter,  took  a  trip  01 
some  three  hundred  miles  over  the 
pathless  Wind  River  Mountains.  The 
mother  rode  astride,  but  the  daughter 
preferred  to  exhibit  her  Durland  Acad- 
emy accomplishment,  and  rode  side- 
saddle, according  to  the  fashion  set  by 
an  artful  queen  to  hide  her  deformity. 
The  advantages  of  health,  youth  and 
strength  were  all  with  the  daughter; 
yet  in  every  case  on  that  long  march  it 
was  the  daughter  who  gave  out  first 
and  compelled  the  pack  train  to  halt 
while  she  and  her  horse  rested.  And 
the  daughter  was  obliged  to  change 
from  one  horse  to  another,  while  the 
same  horse  was  able  to  carry  the  mother, 
a  slightly  heavier  woman,  through  the 
trip.  And  the  back  of  the  horse  which 
the  daughter  had  ridden  chiefly  was  in 


such  a  condition  from  saddle  galls  that 
the  animal,  two  months  before  a  mag- 
nificent creature,  had  to  be  shot. 

I  hear  you  say,  "But  that  was  an 
extreme  case."  Perhaps  it  was,  but  it 
supports  the  verdict  of  the  old  moun- 
taineers who  refuse  to  let  any  horse  they 
prize  be  saddled  with  "those  gol-darned 
woman  fripperies." 

There  is  also  another  side.  A  woman 
at  best  is  physically  handicapped  when 
roughing  it  with  husband  or  brother. 
Then  why  increase  that  handicap  by 
wearing  trailing  skirts  that  catch  on 
every  log  and  bramble,  and  which  de- 
mand the  services  of  at  least  one  hand  to 
hold  up  (fortunately  this  battle  is  already 
won),  and  by  choosing  to  ride  side-sad- 
dle, thus  making  it  twice  as  difficult 
to  mount  and  dismount  by  yourself, 
which  in  fact  compels  you  to  seek  the 


assistance  of  a  log,  or  stone,  or  a  friendly 
hand  for  a  lift?  Western  riding  is  not 
Central  Park  riding,  nor  is  it  Rotten 
Row  riding.  The  cowboy's,  or  military, 
seat  is  much  simpler  and  easier  for  both 
man  and  beast  than  the  Park  seat  — 
though,  of  course,  less  stylish.  That  is 
the  glory  of  it;  you  can  go  galloping 
over  the  prairie  and  uplands  with  never  a 
thought  that  the  trot  is  more  proper,  and 
your  course,  untrammelled  by  fenced-in 
roads,  is  straight  to  the  setting  sun  or 
to  yonder  butte.  And  if  you  want  a 
spice  of  danger,  it  is  there,  sometimes 
more  than  you  want,  in  the  presence  01 
badger  and  gopher  holes,  to  step  into 
which  while  at  high  speed  may  mean 
a  broken  leg  for  your  horse,  perhaps  a 
broken  neck  for  yourself.  But  to  return 
to  the  independence  of  riding  astride  : 
One  day  I  was  following  a  game  trail 


along  a  very  steep  bank  which  ended 
a  hundred  feet  below  in  a  granite 
precipice.  It  had  been  raining  and 
snowing  in  a  fitful  fashion,  and  the  clay 
ground  was  slippery,  making  a  most 
treacherous  footing.  One  of  the  pack 
animals  just  ahead  of  my  horse  slipped, 
fell  to  his  knees,  the  heavy  pack  over- 
balanced him,  and  away  he  rolled  over 
and  over  down  the  slope,  to  be  stopped 
from  the  precipice  only  by  the  happy 
accident  of  a  scrub  tree  in  the  way. 
Frightened  by  this  sight,  my  animal 
plunged,  and  he,  too,  lost  his  footing. 
Had  I  been  riding  side-saddle,  nothing 
could  have  saved  me,  for  the  down- 
hill was  on  the  near  side;  but  instead 
I  swung  out  of  the  saddle  on  the  off 
side  and  landed  in  a  heap  on  the  up- 
hill, still  clutching  the  bridle.  That 
act  saved  my  horse's  life,  probably, 


37 

r 

w      as  well  as  my  own.      For  the  sudden 
M      weight  I  put  on  the  upper  side  as  I  swung 
N      off  enabled  him  to  recover  his  balance 
in    just  in  time.     I  do  not  pretend  to  say 
[?      that  I  can  dismount  from  the  off  side 
as  easily  as  from  the  near,  because  I  am 
o      not  accustomed  to  it.     But  I  have  fre- 
quently done  it  in  emergencies,  while  a 
side-saddle   leaves  one  helpless  in  this 
case  as  in  many  others. 

Besides  being  unable  to  mount  and 
dismount  without  assistance  it  is  very 
difficult  to  get  side-saddle  broken  horses, 
and  it  usually  means  a  horse  so  broken 
in  health  and  spirits  that  he  does  not 
care  what  is  being  strapped  on  his  back 
and  dangling  on  one  side  of  him  only. 
And  to  be  on  such  an  animal  means 
that  you  are  on  the  worst  mount  of  the 
outfit,  and  I  am  sure  that  it  requires 
little  imagination  on  any  one's  part  to 


know  therein  lies  misery.  Oh !  the 
weariness  of  being  the  weakest  of  the 
party  and  the  worst  mounted  —  to  be 
always  at  the  tail  end  of  the  line,  never 
to  be  able  to  keep  up  with  the  saddle 
horses  when  they  start  off  for  a  canter, 
to  expend  your  stock  of  vitality,  which 
you  should  husband  for  larger  matters, 
in  urging  your  beast  by  voice  and  quirt 
to  further  exertion !  Never  place  your- 
self in  such  a  position.  The  former 
you  cannot  help,  but  you  can  lessen  it 
by  making  use  of  such  aids  to  greater 
independence  as  wearing  short  skirts 
and  riding  astride,  and  having  at  least 
as  good  a  horse  as  there  is  in  the  out- 
fit. Then  you  will  get  the  pleasure 
from  your  outing  that  you  have  the 
right  to  expect  —  that  is,  if  you  adhere 
to  one  other  bit  of  advice,  or  rather 
two. 


The  first  is :  See  that  for  your  camp- 
ing trip  is  provided  a  man  cook. 

I  wish  that  I  could  put  a  charm  over 
the  next  few  words  so  that  only  the 
woman  reader  could  understand,  but 
as  I  cannot  I  must  repeat  boldly : 
Dear  woman  who  goes  hunting  with 
her  husband,  be  sure  that  you  have  it 
understood  that  you  do  no  cooking,  or 
dishwashing.  I  think  that  the  reason 
women  so  often  dislike  camping  out  is 
because  the  only  really  disagreeable  part 
of  it  is  left  to  them  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Cooking  out  of  doors  at  best  is  trying, 
and  certainly  you  cannot  be  care  free, 
camp-life's  greatest  charm,  when  you 
have  on  your  mind  the  boiling  of  prunes 
and  beans,  or  when  tears  are  starting 
from  your  smoke-inflamed  eyes  as  you 
broil  the  elk  steak  for  dinner.  No, 
indeed !  See  that  your  guide  or  your 


horse  wrangler  knows  how  to  cook, 
and  expects  to  do  it.  He  is  used  to 
it,  and,  anyway,  is  paid  for  it.  He  is 
earning  his  living,  you  are  taking  a 
vacation. 

Now  for  the  second  advice,  which  is 
a  codicil  to  the  above :  In  return  for 
not  having  to  potter  with  the  food  and 
tinware,  never  complain  about  it.  Eat 
everything  that  is  set  before  you,  shut 
your  eyes  to  possible  dirt,  or,  if  you 
cannot,  leave  the  particular  horror  in 
question  untouched,  but  without  com- 
ment. Perhaps  in  desperation  you  may 
assume  the  role  of  cook  yourself.  Oh, 
foolish  woman,  if  you  do,  you  only  ex- 
change your  woes  for  worse  ones. 

If  you  provide  yourself  with  the  fol- 
lowing articles  and  insist  upon  having 
them  reserved  for  you,  and  then  let  the 
cook  furnish  everything  else,  you  will 
be  all  right : — 


TEARS    STARTING    FROM  YOUR    SMOKE-INFLAMED    EYES. 


An  aluminum  plate  made  double  for  hot 
water.  This  is  a  very  little  trouble  to  fill, 
and  insures  a  comfortable  meal ;  other- 
wise your  meat  and  vegetables  will  be 
cold  before  you  can  eat  them,  and  the 
gravy  will  have  a  thin  coating  of  ice  on 
it.  It  is  always  cold  night  and  morning 
in  the  mountains.  And  if  you  do  not 
need  the  plate  heated  you  do  not  have 
to  fill  it;  that's  all.  I  am  sure  my  hot- 
water  plate  often  saved  me  from  indi- 
gestion and  made  my  meals  things  to 
enjoy  instead  of  to  endure. 

Two  cups  and  saucers  of  white  enamel 
ware.  They  always  look  clean  and  do 
not  break. 

One  silver-plated  knife  and  fork  and 
two  teaspoons. 

One  folding  camp  chair. 

N.  B. —  Provide  your  husband  or 
brother  or  sister  precisely  the  same ;  no 
more,  no  less. 


Japanese  napkins,  enough  to  provide 
two  a  day  for  the  party. 

Two  white  enamel  vegetable  dishes. 

One  folding  camp  table. 

One  candle  lamp,  with  enough  candles. 

Then  leave  all  the  rest  of  the  cook- 
ing outfit  to  your  cook  and  trust  in 
Providence.  (If  you  do  not  approve 
of  Providence,  a  full  aluminum  cooking 
outfit  can  be  bought  so  that  one  pot  or 
pan  nests  in  the  other,  the  whole  very 
complete,  compact  and  light.) 

Come  what  may,  you  have  your  own 
particular  clean  hot  plate,  cup  and 
saucer,  knife,  fork,  spoon  and  napkin, 
with  a  table  to  eat  from  and  a  chair  to 
sit  on  and  a  lamp  to  see  by,  if  you  are 
eating  after  dark  —  which  often  hap- 
pens—  and  nothing  else  matters,  but 
food. 

If  you  want  to  be  canny  you  will 


45 


have  somewhere  in  your  own  pack  a 
M  modest  supply  of  condensed  soups  and 
N  vegetables,  a  box  or  two  of  meat 
|\  crackers,  and  three  or  four  bottles  of 
D  bouillon,  to  be  brought  out  on  occa- 
P  sions  of  famine.  Anyway  it  is  a  com- 
o  fort  to  know  that  you  have  provided 
against  the  wolf. 

So  much  for  your  part  of  the  eating; 
now  for  the  sleeping.  If  you  do  not 
sleep  warm  and  comfortable  at  night, 
the  joys  of  camping  are  as  dust  in  the 
mouth.  The  most  glorious  morning 
that  Nature  ever  produced  is  a  weari- 
ness to  the  flesh  of  the  owl-eyed.  So 
whatever  else  you  leave  behind,  be  sure 
your  sleeping  arrangements  are  com- 
fortable. The  following  is  the  result  of 
three  years'  experience  :  — 

A  piece  of  waterproof  brown  canvas,  7  by 
10  feet,  bound  with  tape  and  supplied 


with  two  heavy  leather  straps  nine  feet 
long,  with  strong  buckles  at  one  end  and 
fastened  to  the  canvas  by  means  of  can- 
vas loops,  and  one  leather  strap  six  feet 
long  that  crosses  the  other  two  at  right 
angles. 

One  rubber  air  bed,  36  by  76  inches 
(don't  take  a  narrower  size  or  you  will 
be  uncomfortable),  fitted  with  large  size 
double  valve  at  each  end.  This  bed  is 
six  inches  thick  when  blown  full  of  air. 
Be  sure  that  sides  are  inserted,  thus 
making  two  seams  to  join  together  the 
top  and  bottom  six  inches  apart.  If  the 
top  and  bottom  are  fastened  directly  to- 
gether, your  bed  slopes  down  at  the 
sides,  which  is  always  disagreeable. 

A  sleeping  bag,  with  the  canvas  cover 
made  the  full  36  inches  wide.  This 
cover  should  hold  two  blanket  bags 
of  different  weight,  and  if  you  are  wise 


you  will  have  made  an  eider-down  bag 
to  fit  inside  all  of  these  for  very  cold 
weather.  The  eider  bag  costs  about 
$16.00  or  $18.00,  but  is  worth  it  if  you 
are  going  to  camp  out  in  the  moun- 
tains after  August.  Do  without  one  or 
two  summer  hats,  but  get  it,  for  it  is 
the  keynote  of  camp  comfort. 

Then  you  want  a  lamb's  wool  night 
wrapper,  a  neutral  grey  or  brown  in 
color,  a  set  of  heavy  night  flannels, 
some  heavy  woollen  stockings  and  a 
woollen  tarn  o'  shanter  large  enough  to 
pull  down  over  the  ears.  A  hot-water 
bag,  also,  takes  up  no  room  and  is 
heavenly  on  a  freezing  night  when  the 
wind  is  howling  through  the  trees  and 
snow  threatens.  N.  B. — See  that  your 
husband  or  brother  has  a  similar  outfit, 
or  he  will  borrow  yours. 

The  sleeping   bags  should  be  sepa- 


rated  and  dried  either  by  sun  or  fire 
every  other  day. 

Always  keep  all  your  sleeping  things 
together  in  your  bed  roll,  and  your  hus- 
band's things  together  in  his  bed  bun- 
dle. It  will  save  you  many  a  sigh 
and  weary  hunt  in  the  dark  and  cold. 
The  tent  and  such  things,  you  can  afford 
to  leave  to  your  guide  or  to  luck.  If 
one  wishes  to  provide  a  tent,  brown 
canvas  is  far  preferable  to  white.  It 
does  not  make  a  glare  of  light,  nor  does 
it  stand  out  aggressively  in  the  land- 
scape. You  have  your  little  nightly 
kingdom  waiting  for  you  and  can  sleep 
cosily  if  nothing  else  is  provided. 
Whenever  possible,  get  your  bed  blown 
up  and  your  sleeping  bags  in  order  on 
top  and  your  sleeping  things  together 
where  you  can  put  your  hands  on  them 
during  the  daylight,  or  if  that  is  impos- 


w  sible,  make  it  the  first  thing  you  do 
8  when  you  make  camp,  while  the  cook 
is  getting  supper.  Then,  as  you  eat 
E\  supper  and  sit  near  the  camp  fire  to 
D  keep  warm,  you  have  the  sweet  con- 
sciousness that  over  there  in  the  black- 
8  ness  is  a  snug  little  nest  all  ready  to 
receive  your  tired  self.  And  if  some 
morning  you  want  to  see  what  you  have 
escaped,  just  unscrew  the  air  valve  to 
your  bed  before  you  rise,  and  when  you 
come  down  on  tine  hard,  bumpy  ground, 
in  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell,  you 
will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  nothing 
so  rare  as  resting  on  air.  Nimrod  used 
to  play  this  trick  on  me  occasionally 
when  it  was  time  to  get  up — it  is  more 
efficacious  than  any  alarm  clock — but 
somehow  he  never  seemed  to  enjoy  it 
when  I  did  it  to  him. 

For  riding,  it  is  better  to  carry  your 


own  saddle  and  bridle  and  to  buy  a 
saddle  horse  upon  leaving  the  railroad. 
You  can  look  to  the  guides  for  all  the 
rest,  such  as  pack  saddles,  pack  animals, 
etc. 

My  saddle  is  a  strong  but  light-weight 
California  model;  that  is,  with  pommel 
and  cantle  on  a  Whitman  tree.  It  is 
fitted  with  gun-carrying  case  of  the 
same  leather  and  saddle-bag  on  the  skirt 
of  each  side,  and  has  a  leather  roll  at 
the  back  strapped  on  to  carry  an  extra 
jacket  and  a  slicker.  (A  rain-coat  is 
most  important.  I  use  a  small  size  of 
the  New  York  mounted  policemen's 
mackintosh,  made  by  Goodyear.  It 
opens  front  and  back  and  has  a  protect- 
ing cape  for  the  hands.)  The  saddle 
has  also  small  pommel  bags  in  which 
are  matches,  compass,  leather  thongs, 
knife  and  a  whistle  (this  last  in  case  I 


I.      SADDLE  COVER  FOR  WET  WEATHER. 
Designed  by  A.  A.  Anderson. 

ii.   POLICEMAN'S  EQUESTRIAN  RAIN  COAT. 


get  lost),  and  there  are  rings  and  strings 
in  which  other  bundles  such  as  lunch 
can  be  attached  while  on  the  march.  A 
horsehair  army  saddle  blanket  saves  the 
animal's  back.  Nimrod's  saddle  is  ex- 
actly like  mine,  only  with  longer  and 
larger  stirrups. 

You  have  now  your  personal  things 
for  eating,  sleeping  and  riding.  It 
remains  but  to  clothe  yourself  and  you 
are  ready  to  start.  Provide  yourselr 
with  two  or  three  champagne  baskets 
covered  with  brown  waterproof  can- 
vas, with  stout  handles  at  each  end 
and  two  leather  straps  going  round  the 
basket  to  buckle  the  lid  down,  and 
a  stronger  strap  going  lengthwise  over 
all.  Or  if  you  do  not  mind  a  little 
more  expense,  telescopes  made  of  leath- 
eroid,  about  22  inches  long,  1 1  inches 
wide  and  9  inches  deep,  with  the  lower 


corners  rounded  so  they  will  not  stick 
into  the  horse,  and  fitted  with  straps 
and  handles,  make  the  ideal  travelling 
case;  for  they  can  be  shipped  from 
place  to  place  on  the  railroad  and  can 
be  packed,  one  on  each  side  of  a  horse. 
They  are  much  to  be  preferred  to  the 
usual  Klondike  bag  for  convenience  in 
packing  and  unpacking  one's  things 
and  in  protecting  them. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
clothes  have  to  be  kept  down  to  the 
limit  of  comfort.  Into  the  telescopes  or 
baskets  should  go  warm  flannels,  extra 
pair  of  heavy  boots,  several  flannel  shirt 
waists,  extra  riding  habit  and  bloomers, 
fancy  neck  ribbons  and  a  belt  or  two  — 
for  why  look  worse  than  your  best  at 
any  time? — a  long  warm  cloak  and  a 
chamois  jacket  for  cold  weather,  snow 
overshoes,  warm  gloves  and  mittens  too, 


and  some  woollen  stockings.  Be  sure 
you  take  flannels.  This  is  the  advice 
of  one  who  never  wears  them  at  any 
other  time.  A  veil  or  two  is  very  use- 
ful, as  the  wind  is  often  high  and  biting, 
and  I  was  much  annoyed  with  wisps  ot 
hair  around  my  eyes,  and  also  with  my 
hair  coming  down  while  on  horseback, 
until  I  hit  upon  the  device  of  tying  a 
brown  liberty  silk  veil  over  the  hair  and 
partially  over  the  ears  before  putting 
on  a  sombrero.  This  veil  was  not  at 
all  unbecoming,  being  the  same  color  as 
my  hair,  and  it  served  the  double  pur- 
pose of  keeping  unruly  locks  in  order 
and  keeping  my  ears  warm.  A  hair  net 
is  also  useful. 

Then  you  must  not  forget  a  rubber 
bath  tub,  a  rubber  wash  basin,  sponge, 
towels,  soap,  and  toilet  articles  generally, 
including  camphor  ice  for  chapped  lips 


and  pennyroyal  vaseline  salve  for  insect 
bites.  A  brown  linen  case  is  invalu- 
able to  hold  all  these  toilet  necessa- 
ries, so  that  you  can  find  them  quickly. 
A  sewing  kit  should  be  supplied,  a  flask 
of  whiskey,  and  a  small  "first-aid"  out- 
fit; a  bottle  of  Perry  Davis  pain  killer 
or  Pond's  extract ;  but  no  more  bottles 
than  must  be,  as  they  are  almost  sure 
to  be  broken.  In  your  husband's  box, 
ammunition  takes  the  place  of  toilet 
articles.  I  shall  pass  over  the  guns  with 
the  bare  mention  that  I  use  a  30.30 
Winchester,  smokeless. 

For  railroad  purposes  all  this  outfit 
for  two  goes  into  two  trunks  and  a  box 
— one  trunk  for  all  the  bedding  and 
night  things:  the  other  for  all  the  cloth- 
ing, guns,  ammunition,  eating  things, 
and  incidentals.  The  box  holds  the 
saddles,  bridles,  and  horse  things. 


o 
M 

fr 

/T 


57 


w  In  a  pack  train,  the  bed-rolls,  weigh- 

8       ing  about  fifty  pounds  each,  go  on  either 
side  of  one  horse,  and  the  telescopes  on 
IN     each  side  of  another  horse  —  in  both 
g       cases  not  a  full  load,  and  leaving  room 
on  the  top  of  the  pack  for  a  tent  and 
o       other   camp    things.      The    saddles,  or 
course,  go  on  the  saddle  horses.     The 
cost  of  such  an  outfit,  in  New  York, 
is  about  two  hundred  dollars  each;  but 
it  lasts  for  years  and  brings  you  in  large 
returns  in  health  and  consequent  hap- 
piness. 

I  am  willing  to  wager  my  horsehair 
rope  (specially  designed  for  keeping  off 
snakes)  that  a  summer  in  the  Rockies 
would  enable  you  to  cheat  time  of  at 
least  two  years,  and  you  would  come 
home  and  join  me  in  the  ranks  of  con- 
verts from  the  usual  summer  sort  of 
thing.  Will  you  try  it?  If  you  do, 


how  you  will  pity  your  unfortunate 
friends  who  have  never  known  what  it 
is  to  sleep  on  the  south  side  of  a  sage 
brush,  and  honestly  say  in  the  morning, 
"  It  is  wonderful  how  well  I  am  feeling." 
But  to  begin :  — 


III. 

THE  FIRST  PLUNGE 

OF  THE 
WOMAN  TENDERFOOT. 


in. 

T  was  about  midnight 
in  the  end  of  August 
when  Nimrod  and  I 
tumbled  off  the  train 
at  Market  Lake,  Idaho. 
Next  morning,  after  a 
comfortable  night's  rest  at  the  "  hotel," 
our  rubber  beds,  sleeping  bags,  saddles, 
guns,  clothing,  and  ourselves  were 
packed  into  a  covered  wagon,  drawn 
by  four  horses,  and  we  started  for 
Jackson's  Hole  in  charge  of  a  driver 
who  knew  the  road  perfectly.  At  least, 
that  was  what  he  said,  so  of  course  he 


must  have  known  it.  But  his  memory 
failed  him  sadly  the  first  day  out,  which 
reduced  him  to  the  necessity  of  inquir- 
ing of  the  neighbours.  As  these  were 
unsociably  placed  from  thirty  to  fifty 
miles  apart,  there  were  many  times 
when  the  little  blind  god  of  chance 
ruled  our  course. 

We  put  up  for  the  night  at  Rex- 
burgh,  after  forty  long  miles  of  alkali 
dust.  The  Mormon  religion  has  sent  a 
thin  arm  up  into  that  country,  and  the 
keeper  of  the  log  building  he  called  a 
hotel  was  of  that  faith.  The  history 
of  our  brief  stay  there  belongs  properly 
to  the  old  torture  days  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, for  the  Mormon's  possessions  of 
living  creatures  were  many,  and  his 
wives  and  children  were  the  least  of 
them. 

Another  day  of  dust  and  long  hard 


miles  over  gradually  rising  hills,  with 
the  huge  mass  of  the  Tetons  looming 
ever  nearer,  and  the  next  day  we 
climbed  the  Teton  Pass. 

There  is  nothing  extraordinary  about 
climbing  the  Teton  Pass — to  tell  about. 
We  just  went  up,  and  then  we  went 
down.  It  took  six  horses  half  a  day  to 
draw  us  up  the  last  mile — some  twenty 
thousand  seconds  of  conviction  on  my 
part  (unexpressed,  of  course;  see  side 
talk)  that  the  next  second  would  find 
us  dashed  to  everlasting  splinters.  And 
it  took  ten  minutes  to  get  us  down ! 

Of  the  two,  I  preferred  going  up.  If 
you  have  ever  climbed  a  greased  pole 
during  Fourth  of  July  festivities  in  your 
grandmother's  village,  you  will  under- 
stand. 

When  we  got  to  the  bottom  there 
was  something  different.  Our  driver 


informed  us  that  in  two  hours  we  should 
be  eating  dinner  at  the  ranch  house 
in  Jackson's  Hole,  where  we  expected 
to  stop  for  a  while  to  recuperate  from 
the  past  year's  hard  grind  and  the  past 
two  weeks  of  travel.  This  was  good 
news,  as  it  was  then  five  o'clock  and 
our  midday  meal  had  been  light  —  de- 
spite the  abundance  of  coffee,  soggy 
potatoes,  salt  pork,  wafer  slices  of  meat 
swimming  in  grease,  and  evaporated 
apricots  wherein  some  nice  red  ants 
were  banqueting. 

"  We'll  just  cross  the  Snake  River, 
and  then  it'll  be  plain  sailing,"  he  said. 
Perhaps  it  was  so.  I  was  inexperi- 
enced in  the  West.  This  was  what  fol- 
lowed : — 

Closing  the  door  on  the  memory  of 
my  recent  perilous  passage,  I  prepared 
to  be  calm  inwardly,  as  I  like  to  think 


I  was  outwardly.  The  Snake  River 
is  so  named  because  for  every  mile  it 
goes  ahead  it  retreats  half  way  along- 
side to  see  how  well  it  has  been  done. 
I  mention  this  as  a  pleasing  instance 
of  a  name  that  really  describes  the 
thing  named.  But  this  is  after  knowl- 
edge. 

About  half  past  five,  we  came  to  a 
rolling  tumbling  yellow  stream  where 
the  road  stopped  abruptly  with  a  horrid 
drop  into  water  that  covered  the  hubs 
of  the  wheels.  The  current  was  strong, 
and  the  horses  had  to  struggle  hard 
to  gain  the  opposite  bank.  I  began  to 
thank  my  patron  saint  that  the  Snake 
River  was  crossed. 

Crossed  *?  Oh,  no  !  A  narrow  strip 
of  pebbly  road,  and  the  high  willows 
suddenly  parted  to  disclose  another 
stream  like  the  last,  but  a  little  deeper, 


a  little  wider,  a  little  worse.  We  crossed 
it.  I  made  no  comments. 

At  the  third  stream  the  horses  re- 
belled. There  are  many  things  four 
horses  can  do  on  the  edge  of  a  wicked 
looking  river  to  make  it  uncomfortable, 
but  at  last  they  had  to  go  in,  plunging 
madly,  and  dragging  the  wagon  into 
the  stream  nearly  broadside,  which 
made  at  least  one  in  the  party  consider 
the  frailty  of  human  contrivances  when 
matched  against  a  raging  flood. 

Soon  there  was  another  stream.  I 
shall  not  describe  it.  When  we  eventu- 
ally got  through  it,  the  driver  stopped 
his  horses  to  rest,  wiped  his  brow,  went 
around  the  wagon  and  pulled  a  few 
ropes  tighter,  cut  a  willow  stick  and 
mended  his  broken  whip,  gave  a  hitch 
to  his  trousers,  and  remarked  as  he 
started  the  horses : 

"Now,    when    we    get   through    the 


Snake  River  on  here  a  piece,  we'll  be 
all  right." 

"  I  thought  we  had  been  crossing  it 
for  the  past  hour,"  I  was  feminine 
enough  to  gasp. 

"  Oh,  yes,  them's  forks  of  it ;  but  the 
main  stream's  on  ahead,  and  it's  mighty 
treacherous,  too,"  was  the  calm  reply. 

When  we  reached  the  Snake  River, 
there  was  no  doubt  that  the  others  were 
mere  forks.  Fortunately,  Joe  Miller 
and  his  two  sons  live  on  the  opposite 
bank,  and  make  a  living  by  helping 
people  escape  destruction  from  the 
mighty  waters.  Two  men  waved  us 
back  from  the  place  where  our  driver 
was  lashing  his  horses  into  the  rushing 
current,  and  guided  us  down  stream 
some  distance.  One  of  them  said  : 

"  This  yere  ford  changes  every  week, 
but  I  reckon  you  might  try  here." 

We  did. 


Had  my  hair  been  of  the  dramatic 
kind  that  realises  situations,  it  would 
have  turned  white  in  the  next  ten  min- 
utes. The  water  was  over  the  horses' 
backs  immediately,  the  wagon  box  was 
afloat,  and  we  were  being  borne  rapidly 
down  stream  in  the  boiling  seething 
flood,  when  the  wheels  struck  a  shingly 
bar  which  gave  the  horses  a  chance  to  half 
swim,  half  plunge.  The  two  men,  who 
were  on  horseback,  each  seized  one  of 
the  leaders,  and  kept  his  head  pointed 
for  a  cut  in  the  bank,  the  only  place 
where  we  could  get  out. 

Everything  in  the  wagon  was  afloat. 
A  leather  case  with  a  forty  dollar  fish- 
ing rod  stowed  snugly  inside  slipped 
quietly  off  down  stream.  I  rescued  my 
camera  from  the  same  fate  just  in  time. 
Overshoes,  wraps,  field  glasses,  guns, 
were  suddenly  endowed  with  motion. 


Another  moment  and  we  should  surely 
have  sunk,  when  the  horses,  by  a  su- 
preme effort,  managed  to  scramble  on 
to  the  bank,  but  were  too  exhausted  to 
draw  more  than  half  of  the  wagon 
after  them,  so  that  it  was  practically  on 
end  in  the  water,  our  outfit  submerged, 
of  course,  and  ourselves  reclining  as 
gracefully  as  possible  on  the  backs  of 
the  seats. 

Had  anything  given  away  then,  there 
might  have  been  a  tragedy.  The  two 
men  immediately  fastened  a  rope  to  the 
tongue  of  the  wagon,  and  each  winding 
an  end  around  the  pommel  of  his  sad- 
dle, set  his  cow  pony  pulling.  Our 
horses  made  another  effort,  and  up  we 
came  out  of  the  water,  wet,  storm  tossed, 
but  calm.  Oh,  yes  —  calm  ! 

After  that,  earth  had  no  terrors  for 
me ;  the  worst  road  that  we  could  bump 


over  was  but  an  incident.  I  was  not 
surprised  that  it  grew  dark  very  soon, 
and  that  we  blundered  on  and  on  for 
hours  in  the  night  until  the  near  wheeler 
just  lay  down  in  the  dirt,  a  dark  spot 
in  the  dark  road,  and  our  driver,  after 
coming  back  from  a  tour  of  inspection 
on  foot,  looked  worried.  I  mildly  asked 
if  we  would  soon  cross  Snake  River, 
but  his  reply  was  an  admission  that  he 
was  lost.  There  was  nothing  visible 
but  the  twinkling  stars  and  a  dim  out- 
line of  the  grim  Tetons.  The  prospect 
was  excellent  for  passing  the  rest  of  the 
night  where  we  were,  famished,  freez- 
ing, and  so  tired  I  could  hardly  speak. 
But  Nimrod  now  took  command. 
His  first  duty,  of  course,  being  a  man, 
was  to  express  his  opinion  of  the  driver 
in  terms  plain  and  comprehensive;  then 
he  loaded  his  rifle  and  fired  a  shot.  If 


there  were  any  mountaineers  around, 
they  would  understand  the  signal  and 
answer. 

We  waited.  All  was  silent  as  before 
Two  more  horses  dropped  to  the  ground. 
Then  he  sent  another  loud  report  into 
the  darkness.  In  a  few  moments  we 
thought  we  heard  a  distant  shout,  then 
the  report  of  a  gun  not  far  away. 

Nimrod  mounted  the  only  standing 
horse  and  went  in  the  direction  of  the 
sound.  Then  followed  an  interminable 
silence.  I  hallooed,  but  got  no  answer. 
The  wildest  fears  for  Nimrod's  safety 
tormented  me.  He  had  fallen  into  a 
gully,  the  horse  had  thrown  him,  he  was 
lost. 

Then  I  heard  a  noise  and  listened 
eagerly.  The  driver  said  it  was  a  coy- 
ote howling  up  on  the  mountain.  At 
last  voices  did  come  to  me  from  out  of 


the  blackness,  and  Nimrod  returned 
with  a  man  and  a  fresh  horse.  The  man 
was  no  other  than  the  owner  of  the 
house  for  which  we  were  searching,  and 
in  ten  minutes  I  was  drying  myself  by 
his  fireplace,  while  his  hastily  aroused 
wife  was  preparing  a  midnight  supper 
for  us. 

To  this  day,  I  am  sure  that  driver's 
worst  nightmare  is  when  he  lives  over 
again  the  time  when  he  took  a  tender- 
foot and  his  wife  into  Jackson's  Hole, 
and,  but  for  the  tenderfoot,  would  have 
made  them  stay  out  overnight,  wet, 
famished,  frozen,  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  the  very  house  for  which  they  were 
looking. 


\/H 


V 

I 

N 

A 


IV. 

WHICH  TREATS  OF  THE 
IMPS  AND  MY  ELK. 


IV. 


F  you  want  to  see  elk, 
you  just  follow  up  the 
road  till  you  strike  a 
trail  on  the  left,  up  over 
that  hog's  back,  and 
that  will  bring  you  in 
a  mile  or  so  on  to  a  grassy  flat,  and  in 
two  or  three  miles  more  you  come  to  a 
lake  back  in  the  mountains." 

Mrs.  Cummings,  the  speaker,  was  no 
ordinary  woman  of  Western  make.  She 
had  been  imported  from  the  East  by 
her  husband  three  years  before.  She 
had  been  '  forelady  in  a  corset  factory,' 


when  matrimony  had  enticed  her  away, 
and  the  thought  that  walked  beside  her 
as  she  baked,  and  washed,  and  fed  the 
calves,  was  that  some  day  she  would  go 
4  back  East.'  And  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  for  those  parts  she  was  very 
comfortable. 

Her  log  house  was  the  largest  in  the 
country,  barring  Captain  Jones's,  her 
nearest  neighbour,  ten  miles  up  at  Jack- 
son's Lake,  and  his  was  a  hotel.  Hers 
could  boast  of  six  rooms  and  two 
clothes'  closets.  The  ceilings  were 
white  muslin  to  shut  off  the  rafters,  the 
sitting  room  had  wall-paper  and  a  rag 
carpet,  and  in  one  corner  was  the  post- 
office. 

The  United  States  Government  Post- 
office  of  Deer,  Wyoming,  took  up  two 
compartments  of  Mrs.  Cummings'  writ- 
ing desk,  and  she  was  called  upon  to  be 


SHE   WAS    POSTMISTRESS    TWICE   A  WEEK. 


postmistress  fifteen  minutes  twice  a 
week,  when  the  small  boy,  mounted  on 
a  tough  little  pony,  happened  around 
with  the  leather  bag  which  carried  the 
mail  to  and  from  Jackson,  thirty  miles 
below. 

"  I'd  like  some  elk  meat  mighty  well 
for  dinner,"  Mrs.  Cummings  continued, 
as  she  leaned  against  the  kitchen  door 
and  watched  us  mount  our  newly  ac- 
quired horses,  "but  you  won't  find 
game  around  here  without  a  guide — 
Easterners  never  do." 

Nimrod  and  I  started  off  in  joyous 
mood.  The  secret  of  it,  the  fascination 
of  the  wild  life,  was  revealed  to  me.  At 
last  I  understood  why  the  birds  sing. 
The  glorious  exhilaration  of  the  moun- 
tains, the  feeling  that  life  is  a  rosy  dream, 
and  that  all  the  worry  and  the  fever  and 
the  fret  of  man's  making  is  a  mere 


illusion  that  has  faded  away  into  the 
past,  and  is  not  worth  while ;  that  the 
real  life  is  to  be  free,  to  fly  over  the 
grassy  mountain    meadow  with    never    '. T 
a  limitation  offence  or  house,  with  the 
eternal  peaks  towering  around  you,  ter-      R 
rible  in  their  grandeur  and  vastness,  yet      § 
inviting. 

We  struck  the  trail  all  right,  we 
thought,  but  it  soon  disappeared  and 
we  had  to  govern  our  course  by  imagi- 
nation, an  uncertain  guide  at  best.  We 
got  into  dreadful  tangles  of  timber ;  the 
country  was  all  strange,  and  the  trees 
spread  over  the  mountain  for  miles,  so 
that  it  was  like  trying  to  find  the  way 
under  a  blanket ;  but  we  kept  on  rid- 
ing our  horses  over  fallen  logs  and 
squeezing  them  between  trees,  all  the 
time  keeping  a  sharp  watch  over  them, 
for  they  were  fresh  and  scary. 


Finally,  after  three  hours'  hard  climb- 
ing, we  emerged  from  the  forest  on  to 
a  great  bare  shoulder  of  the  mountain, 
from  which  the  whole  country  around, 
vast  and  beautiful,  could  be  seen.  We 
took  bearings  and  tried  to  locate  that 
lake,  and  we  finally  decided  that  a 
wooded  basin  three  miles  away  looked 
likely  to  contain  it. 

In  order  to  get  to  it,  we  had  to  cross 
a  wooded  ravine,  very  steep  and  torn 
out  by  a  recent  cloudburst.  We  rode 
the  horses  down  places  that  I  shudder 
in  remembering,  and  I  had  great 
trouble  in  keeping  away  from  the  front 
feet  of  my  horse  as  I  led  him,  especially 
when  there  were  little  gullies  that  had 
to  be  jumped. 

It  was  exciting  enough,  and  hard 
work,  too,  every  nerve  on  a  tingle  and 
one's  heart  thumping  with  the  unwont- 


ed  exercise  at  that  altitude ;  but  oh,  the 
glorious  air,  the  joy  of  life  and  motion 
that  was  quite  unknown  to  my  recep- 
tion- and  theatre-going  self  in  the  dim 
far  away  East ! 

We  searched  for  that  lake  all  day, 
and  at  nightfall  went  home  confident 
that  we  could  find  it  on  the  morrow. 

Mrs.  Cummings'  smile  clearly  ex- 
pressed 4 1  told  you  so,'  and  she  re- 
marked as  she  served  supper :  "  When 
my  husband  comes  home  next  week, 
he  will  take  you  where  you  can  find 
game." 

The  next  morning  we  again  took 
some  lunch  in  the  saddle  bag  and  start- 
ed for  that  elusive  spot  we  had  chris- 
tened Cummings'  Lake.  About  three 
o'clock  we  found  it — a  beautiful  patch 
of  water  in  the  heart  of  the  forest, 
nestling  like  a  jewel,  back  in  the  moun- 
tains. 


We  picketed  the  horses  at  a  safe  dis- 
J[      tance,  so  that  they  could  not  be  seen  or 
*!      heard  from  the  lake.     At  one  end  the 
E*     shore  sloped  gradually  into  the  water, 
g      and    here    Nimrod    discovered    many 
tracks  of  elk,  a  few  deer,  and  one  set  of 
o      black  bear.     He  said  the  lake  was  evi- 
dently a  favourite  drinking  place,  that 
a  band  of  elk  had  been  coming  daily 
to  water,  and  that,  according  to  their 
habits,  they  ought  to  come  again  be- 
fore dusk. 

So  we  concealed  ourselves  on  a  little 
bluff  to  the  right  and  waited.  The  sun 
had  begun  to  cast  long  lines  on  the 
earth,  and  the  little  circle  of  water  was 
already  in  shadow  when  Nimrod  held 
up  his  finger  as  a  warning  for  silence. 
We  listened.  We  were  so  still  that  the 
whole  world  seemed  to  be  holding  its 
breath. 

I  heard  a  faint  noise  as  of  a  snapping 


branch,  then  some  light  thuds  along  the 
ground,  and  to  the  left  of  us  out  of  the 
dark  forest,  a  dainty  creature  flitted 
along  the  trail  and  playfully  splashed 
into  the  water.  Six  others  of  her  sis- 
ters followed  her,  with  two  little  ones, 
and  they  were  all  splashing  about  in 
the  water  like  so  many  sportive  mer- 
maids when  their  lordly  master  ap- 
peared— a  fine  bull  elk  who  seemed  to 
me,  as  he  sedately  approached  the  edge 
of  the  lake,  to  be  nothing  but  horns. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  picture  of  this 
family  at  home — the  quiet  lake  encir- 
cled by  forest  and  towered  over  by 
mountains;  the  gentle  graceful  crea- 
tures full  of  life  playing  about  in  the 
water,  now  drinking,  now  splashing  it 
in  cooling  showers  upon  one  another; 
the  solicitude  of  a  mother  that  her 
young  one  should  come  to  no  harm ; 


and  then  the  head  of  them  all  proceed- 
ing with  dignity  to  bathe  with  his 
harem. 

Had  I  to  do  again  what  followed,  I 
hope  I  should  act  differently.  Nimrod 
was  watching  them  with  a  rapt  expres- 
sion, quite  forgetful  of  the  rifle  in  his 
hands,  when  I,  who  had  never  seen  any- 
thing killed,  touched  his  arm  and  whis- 
pered :  "  Shoot,  shoot  now,  if  you  are 
going  to." 

The  report  of  the  rifle  rang  out  like 
a  cannon.  The  does  fled  away  as  if  by 
magic.  The  stag  tried  also  to  get  to 
shore,  but  the  ball  had  inflicted  a  wound 
which  partially  paralysed  his  hindquar- 
ters. At  the  sight  of  the  blood  and  the 
big  fellow's  struggles  to  get  away,  the 
horror  of  the  thing  swept  over  me. 

"  Oh,  kill  him,  kill  him  ! "  I  wailed. 
"  Don't  let  him  suffer ! " 


But  here  the  hunter  in  Nimrod  an- 
swered :  "  If  I  kill  him  now,  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  get  him.  Wait  until 
he  gets  out  of  the  water." 

The  next  few  seconds,  with  that 
struggling  thing  in  the  water,  seemed 
an  eternity  of  agony  to  me.  Then  an- 
other loud  bang  caused  the  proud  head 
with  its  weight  of  antlers  to  sink  to  the 
wet  bank  never  to  rise  again. 

Later,  as  I  dried  my  tears,  I  asked 
Nimrod: 

"  Where  is  the  place  to  aim  if  you  want 
to  kill  an  animal  instantly,  so  that  he  will 
not  suffer,  and  never  know  whathit  him?" 

"  The  best  place  is  the  shoulder."  He 
showed  me  the  spot  on  his  elk. 

"But  wouldn't  he  suffer  at  all  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course,  if  you  hit  him  in 
the  brain,  he  will  never  know;  but  that 
is  a  very  fine  shot.  Your  target  is  only 


an  inch  or  two,  here  between  the  eye 
and  the  ear,  and  the  head  moves  more 
than  the  body.  But,"  he  said,  "you 
would  not  kill  an  elk  after  the  way  you 
have  wept  over  this  one  ?  " 

"  If- — if  I  were  sure  he  would  not 
suffer,  I  might  kill  just  one,"  I  said, 
conscious  of  my  inconsistencies.  My 
woman's  soul  revolted,  and  yet  I  was 
out  West  for  all  the  experiences  that 
the  life  could  give  me,  and  I  knew,  if 
the  chance  came  just  right,  that  one  elk 
would  be  sacrificed  to  that  end. 

The  next  day,  much  to  Mrs.  Cum- 
mings'  surprise,  we  had  elk  steak,  the 
most  delicious  of  meat  when  properly 
cooked.  The  next  few  days  slipped  by. 
We  were  always  in  the  open  air,  riding 
about  in  those  glorious  mountains,  and 
it  was  the  end  of  the  week  when  a  turn 
of  the  wheel  brought  my  day. 


First,  it  becomes  necessary  to  confide 
in  you.  Fear  is  a  very  wicked  companion 
who,  since  nursery  days,  had  troubled  me 
very  little;  but  when  I  arrived  out  West, 
he  was  waiting  for  me,  and,  so  that  I  need 
never  be  without  him,  he  divided  him- 
self into  a  band  of  little  imps. 

Each  imp  had  a  special  duty,  and 
never  left  me  until  he  had  been  crushed 
in  silent  but  terrible  combat.  There 
was  the  imp  who  did  not  like  to  be 
alone  in  the  mountains,  and  the  imp 
who  was  sure  he  was  going  to  be  lost 
in  those  wildernesses,  and  the  imp  who 
quaked  at  the  sight  of  a  gun,  and  the 
imp  who  danced  a  mad  fierce  dance 
when  on  a  horse.  All  these  had  been 
conquered,  or  at  least  partially  re- 
duced to  subjection,  but  the  imp  who 
sat  on  the  saddle  pommel  when  there 
was  a  ditch  or  stream  to  be  jumped  had 


p 

T 


hitherto  obliged  me  to  dismount  and 
get  over  the  space  on  foot. 

This  morning,  when  we  came  to  a 
nasty  boggy  place,  with  several  small 
water  cuts  running  through  it,  I  obeyed 
the  imp  with  reluctance.  Well,  we  got 
over  it — Blondey,  the  imp,  and  I — with 
nothing  worse  than  wet  feet  and  shat- 
tered nerves. 

I  attempted  to  mount,  and  had  one 
foot  in  the  stirrup  and  one  hand  on  the 
pommel,  when  Blondey  started.  Like 
the  girl  in  the  song,  I  could  not  get  up, 
I  could  not  get  down,  and  although  I 
had  hold  of  the  reins,  I  had  no  free 
hand  to  pull  them  in  tighter,  and  you 
may  be  sure  the  imp  did  not  help  me. 
Blondey,  realising  there  was  something 
wrong,  broke  into  a  wild  gallop  across 
country,  but  I  clung  on,  expecting  every 
moment  the  saddle  would  turn,  until  I 


got  my  foot  clear  from  the  stirrup. 
Then  I  let  go  just  as  Blondey  was 
gathering  himself  together  for  another 
ditch. 

I  was  stunned,  but  escaped  any  seri- 
ous hurt.  Nimrod  was  a  great  deal 
more  undone  than  I.  He  had  not  dared 
to  go  fast  for  fear  of  making  Blondey 
go  faster,  and  he  now  came  rushing  up, 
with  the  fear  of  death  upon  his  face 
and  the  most  terrible  swears  on  his  lips. 

Although  a  good  deal  shaken,  I  be- 
gan to  laugh,  the  combination  was  so 
incongruous.  Nimrod  rarely  swears, 
and  was  now  quite  unconscious  what 
his  tongue  was  doing.  Upon  being  as- 
sured that  all  was  well,  he  started  after 
Blondey  and  soon  brought  him  back  to 
me ;  but  while  he  was  gone  the  imp  and 
I  had  a  mortal  combat. 

I    did    up    my  hair,  rearranged   my 


habit,  and,  rejecting  Nimrod's  offer  of 
his  quieter  horse,  remounted  Blondey. 
We  all  jumped  the  next  ditch,  but  the 
shock  was  too  much  for  the  imp  in  his 
weakened  condition;  he  tumbled  off 
the  pommel,  and  I  have  never  seen  him 
since. 

Our  course  lay  along  the  hills  on  the 
east  bank  of  Snake  River  that  day.  We 
discovered  another  beautiful  sapphire 
lake  in  a  setting  of  green  hills.  Several 
ducks  were  gliding  over  its  surface. 
We  watched  them,  in  concealment  of 
course,  and  we  saw  a  fish  hawk  capture 
his  dinner.  Then  we  quietly  continued 
along  the  ridge  of  a  high  bluff  until  we 
came  to  an  outstretched  point,  where 
beneath  us  lay  the  Snake  Valley  with 
its  fickle-minded  river  winding  through. 

The  sun  was  just  dropping  behind 
the  great  Tetons,  massed  in  front  of  us 


across  the  valley.  We  sat  on  our  horses 
motionless,  looking  at  the  peaceful  and 
majestic  scene,  when  out  from  the  shad- 
ows on  the  sandy  flats  far  below  us 
came  a  dark  shadow,  and  then  leisurely 
another  and  another.  They  were  elk, 
two  bulls  and  a  doe,  grazing  placidly  in 
a  little  meadow  surrounded  by  trees. 

We  kept  as  still  as  statues. 

Nimrod  said.  "  There  is  your  chance." 

"  Yes,"  I  echoed,  "  here  is  my 
chance." 

We  waited  until  they  passed  into  the 
trees  again.  Then  we  dismounted. 
Nimrod  handed  me  the  rifle,  saying : 

"  There  are  seven  shots  in  it.  I  will 
stay  behind  with  the  horses." 

I  took  the  gun  without  a  word  and 
crept  down  the  mountain  side,  keeping 
under  cover  as  much  as  possible.  The 
sunset  quiet  surrounded  me ;  the  deadly 


F 
T 


quiet  of  but  one  idea — to  creep  upon 
that  elk  and  kill  him — possessed  me. 
That  gradual  painful  drawing  nearer  to 
my  prey  seemed  a  lifetime.  I  was  con- 
scious of  nothing  to  the  right,  or  to  the 
left  of  me,  only  of  what  I  was  going  to 
do.  There  were  pine  woods  and  scrub 
brush  and  more  woods.  Then,  sud- 
denly, I  saw  him  standing  by  the  river 
about  to  drink.  I  crawled  nearer  until 
I  was  within  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards 
of  him,  when  at  the  snapping  of  a  twig 
he  raised  his  head  with  its  crown  of 
branching  horn.  He  saw  nothing,  so 
turned  again  to  drink. 

Now  was  the  time.  I  crawled  a  few 
feet  nearer  and  raised  the  deadly  weap- 
on. The  stag  turned  partly  away  from 
me.  In  another  moment  he  would  be 
gone.  I  sighted  along  the  metal  bar- 
rel and  a  terrible  bang  went  booming 


through  the  dim  secluded  spot.  The 
elk  raised  his  proud,  antlered  head  and 
looked  in  my  direction.  Another  shot 
tore  through  the  air.  Without  another 
move  the  animal  dropped  where  he 
stood.  He  lay  as  still  as  the  stones  be- 
side him,  and  all  was  quiet  again  in  the 
twilight. 

I  sat  on  the  ground  where  I  was  and 
made  no  attempt  to  go  near  him.  So 
that  was  all.  One  instant  a  magnificent 
breathing  thing,  the  next  —  nothing. 

Death  had  been  so  sudden.  I  had  no 
regret,  I  had  no  triumph — just  a  sort 
of  wonder  at  what  I  had  done  —  a  sur- 
prise that  the  breath  of  life  could  be 
taken  away  so  easily. 

Meanwhile,  Nimrod  had  become 
alarmed  at  the  long  silence,  and,  tying 
the  horses,  had  followed  me  down  the 
mountain.  He  was  nearly  down  when 


he  heard  the  shots,  and  now  came  rush- 
ing up. 

"  I  have  done  it,"  I  said  in  a  dull 
tone,  pointing  at  the  dark,  quiet  object 
on  the  bank. 

"  You  surely  have." 

Nimrod  paced  the  distance  —  it  was 
one  hundred  and  thirty-five  yards  —  as 
we  went  up  to  the  elk.  How  beautiful 
his  coat  was,  glossy  and  shaded  in 
browns,  and  those  great  horns  —  eleven 
points  —  that  did  not  seem  so  big  now 
to  my  eyes. 

Nimrod  examined  the  carcass. 

"You  are  an  apt  pupil,"  he  said. 
"You  put  a  bullet  through  his  heart 
and  another  through  his  brain." 

"  Yes,"  I  said ;  "  he  never  knew  what 
killed  him."  But  I  felt  no  glory  in  the 
achievement. 


V. 


LOST  IN  THE  MOUNTAINS. 


AVE  you  ever  been  lost 
in  the  mountains'? — not 
the  peaceful,  cultivated 
child  hills  of  the  Cats- 
kills,  but  in  real  moun- 
tains, where  the  first  out- 
post of  civilisation,  a  lonely  ranch  house, 
is  two  weeks'  travel  away,  and  where 
that  stream  on  your  left  is  bound  for  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  and  that  stream  on  your 
right  over  there  will,  after  four  thousand 
miles,  find  its  way  into  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  and  where  the  air  you  breathe  is 


twelve  thousand  feet  above  those  seas 
I  have. 

The  situation  is  naturally  one  you 
would  not  fish  out  of  the  grab  bag  of 
fate  if  you  could  avoid  it.  When  you 
suddenly  find  it  on  your  hands,  however, 
there  is  only  one  thing  to  do  —  keep 
your  nerve,  grasp  it  firmly,  and  look  at 
it  closely.  If  you  have  a  horse  and  a 
gun  and  a  cartridge,  it  is  not  so  bad.  I 
had  these,  and  I  had  better  than  all  these, 
I  had  Nimrod  —  but  only  half  of  Nim- 
rod.  The  working  half  was  chained  up 
by  my  fears,  for  such  is  the  power  of  a 
woman.  I  will  explain. 

In  crossing  over  the  Continental  Di- 
vide of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  we  were 
guests  in  the  pack  train  of  a  man  who 
was  equally  at  home  in  a  New  York  draw- 
ing-room or  on  a  Wyoming  bear  hunt, 
and  he  had  made  mountain  travelling  a 


fine  art.  Besides  ourselves,  there  were 
the  horse  wrangler,  the  cook  (of  whom 
you  shall  hear  later),  and  sixteen  horses, 
and  we  started  from  Jackson's  Lake  for 
the  Big  Horn  Basin,  several  hundred 
miles  over  the  pathless  uninhabited 
mountains. 

No  one  who  has  not  tried  it  knows 
how  difficult  it  is  for  two  or  three  men 
to  keep  so  many  pack  animals  in  line, 
with  no  pathway  to  guide  ;  and  once  they 
are  started  going  nicely,  it  is  nothing 
short  of  a  calamity  to  stop  them,  especial- 
ly when  it  is  necessary  to  cover  a  cer- 
tain number  of  miles  before  nightfall  in 
order  that  they  may  have  feed. 

We  were  on  the  Pacific  side  of  the 
Wind  River  Divide,  and  must  get  to  the 
top  that  night.  The  horses  were  travel- 
ling  nicely  up  the  difficult  ascent,  so  when 
Nimrod  got  his  feet  wet  crossing  a 


V 


v*\\ 

%£,  * 


"  o^1* 

&~ 


~    I 'I  rs 

:x^ 

V"   i 

J  V   ^**/t: 


<M? 

$$€ 


"..•7V--5- 
%$& 


stream  about  noon,  he  and  I  thought  we 
would  just  stop  and  have  a  little  lunch, 
dry  the  shoes,  and  catch  up  with  the 
pack  train  in  half  an  hour. 

From  the  minute  the  last  horse  van- 
ished out  of  sight  behind  a  rock,  desola- 
tion settled  upon  me.  That  slender  line 
of  living  beings  somewhere  on  ahead 
was  the  only  link  between  us  and  civi- 
lisation—  civilisation  which  I  under- 
stood, which  was  human  and  touchable 
—  and  the  awful  vastness  of  those  end- 
less peaks,  wherein  lurked  a  hundred 
dangers,  and  which  seemed  made  but  to 
annihilate  me. 

Of  course,  the  fire  would  not  burn, 
and  the  shoes  would  not  dry.  Blondey 
wandered  off  and  had  to  be  brought 
back,  and  it  seemed  an  age  before  we 
were  again  in  the  saddle,  following  the 
trail  the  animals  had  made. 


L 


THE   TRAIL  WAS    LOST    IN   A   GULLY. 


^ 

But  Nimrod  was  blithe  and  uncon- 
cerned, so  I  made  no  sign  of  the  craven 
soul  within  me.     For  an  hour  or  two  we 
jT^     followed  the  trail,  urging  our  horses  as 
D      much  as  possible,  but  the  ascent  was 
p       difficult,  and  we  could  not  gain  on  the 
speed  of  the  pack  train.     Then  the  trail 
was  lost  in  a  gully  where  the  animals  had 
gone  in  every  direction  to  get  through. 
My  nerves  were  now  on  the  rack  of 
suspense. 

Where  were  they  *?  Surely,  we  must 
have  passed  them !  We  were  on  the 
wrong  trail,  perhaps  going  away  from 
them  at  every  step  ! 

The  screws  of  fear  grew  tighter  every 
moment  during  the  following  hours. 
Nimrod  soon  found  what  he  considered 
to  be  the  trail,  and  we  proceeded. 

At  last  we  got  to  the  top.  No  sign 
of  them.  I  could  have  screamed  aloud; 


a  great  wave  of  soul  destroying  fear  en- 
compassed me  —  wild  black  fear.  I 
could  not  reason  it  out.  We  were  lost ! 

Nimrod  scoffed  at  me.  The  track 
was  still  plain,  he  said;  but  I  could  not 
read  the  hieroglyphics  at  my  feet,  and 
there  was  no  room  in  my  mind  for  con- 
fidence or  hope.  Fear  filled  it  all. 

There  we  were  with  the  mighty  forces 
of  the  insensate  world  around,  so  pitiless, 
so  silently  cruel,  it  seemed  to  my  city- 
bred  soul.  It  was  the  spot  where  Nature 
spread  her  wonders  before  us,  one  tiny 
spring  dividing  its  waters  east  and  west 
for  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans,  for 
this  was  the  highest  point. 

We  attempted  to  cross  that  hateful 
divide,  that  at  another  time  might  have 
looked  so  beautiful,  when  suddenly  Nim- 
rod's  horse  plunged  withers  deep  in  a 
bog,  and  in  his  struggles  to  get  out 


threw  Nimrod  head  first  from  the  saddle 
into  the  mud,  where  he  lay  quite  still. 

I  faced  the  horror  of  death  at  that  mo- 
ment. Of  course,  this  was  what  I  had 
been  expecting,  but  had  not  been  able 
to  put  into  words.  Nimrod  killed  !  My 
other  fears  dwindled  away  before  this 
one,  or,  rather,  it  seemed  to  wrap  them 
in  itself,  as  in  a  cloak.  For  an  instant 
I  could  not  move  —  there  alone  with  a 
dead  or  wounded  man  on  that  awful 
mountain  top. 

But  here  was  an  emergency  where  I 
could  do  something  besides  blindly  fol- 
low another's  lead.  I  caught  the  fright- 
ened animal  as  it  dashed  out  of  the 
treacherous  place  (to  be  horseless  is  al- 
most a  worse  fate  than  to  be  wounded), 
and  Nimrod,  who  was  little  hurt,  quickly 
recovered  and  managed  to  scramble  to 
dry  ground,  and  again  into  the  saddle. 


Forcing  our  tired  horses  onward,  we 
again  found  a  trail,  supposedly  the  right 
one,  but  there  was  that  haunting  fear 
that  it  was  not.  For  the  only  signs  were 
the  bending  of  the  grass  and  the  occa- 
sional rubbing  of  the  trees  where  the 
animals  had  passed.  And  these  might 
have  been  done  by  a  band  of  elk. 

It  was  growing  dusk  and  still  no  pack 
train  in  sight.  No  criminal  on  trial  for 
his  life  could  have  felt  more  wretchedly 
apprehensive  than  I.  At  last  we  came 
to  a  stream.  Nimrod,  who  had  dis- 
mounted to  examine  more  closely,  said: 

**  The  trail  turns  off  here,  but  it  is  very 
dim  in  the  grass." 

"  Where  ?"  I  asked,  anxiously. 

He  pointed  to  the  ground.  I  could 
make  out  nothing.  "  Oh,  let  us  hurry ! 
They  must  have  gone  on." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  safer  to  follow 
these  tracks  for  a  time  at  least,  to  see 


w      where  they  come  out.     There  are  some 


tracks  across  the  stream  there,  but  they 

* 

are  older  and  dimmer  and  might  have 
been  made  by  elk." 

"  Oh,  do  go  on  !  Surely  the  tracks 
p  across  the  stream  must  be  the  ones/ 
o  To  go  on,  on,  and  hurry,  was  my  one 
thought,  my  one  cry. 

Nimrod  yielded.  Thus  I  and  my 
wild  fear  betrayed  the  hunter's  instinct. 
We  went  on  for  many  weary  minutes. 
We  lost  all  tracks.  Then  Nimrod  fired 
a  shot  into  the  air.  He  would  not  do 
it  before,  because  he  said  we  were  not 
lost,  and  that  there  was  no  need  for  worry 
—worry,  when  for  hours  blind  fear  had 
held  me  in  torture  ! 

There  was  no  answer  to  the  shot. 

In  five  minutes  he  fired  again.  Then 
we  heard  a  report,  very  faint.  I  would 
not  believe  that  I  had  heard  it  at  all. 
I  raised  my  gun  and  fired.  This  time  a 


shot  rattled  through  the  branches  over- 
head, unpleasantly  near.  It  was  clearly 
from  behind  us.  We  turned,  and  after 
another  interchange  of  shots,  the  cook 
appeared. 

I  was  too  exhausted  to  be  glad,  but  a 
feeling  of  relief  glided  over  me.  He 
led  us  to  the  stream  where  Nimrod  had 
wanted  to  turn  off,  and  from  there  we 
were  quickly  in  camp,  very  much  to  our 
host's  relief.  I  dropped  at  the  foot  of  a 
tree,  and  said  nothing  for  an  hour —  my 
companions  were  men,  so  I  did  not  have 
to  talk  if  I  could  not  —  then  I  arose  as 
usual  and  was  ready  for  supper. 

Of  course,  Nimrod  was  blamed  for 
not  being  a  better  mountaineer.  '  He 
ought  to  have  seen  that  broken  turf  by 
the  trail,'  or  those  '  blades  of  fresh  pulled 
grass  in  the  pine  fork.'  How  could  they 
know  that  a  woman  and  her  fears  had 


hampered  him  at  every  step,  especially 
as  you  see  there  was  no  need  ? 

Always  regulate  your  fears  according 
to  the  situation,  and  then  you  will  not  go 
into  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
when  you  are  only  lost  in  the  mountains. 


VI. 
THE  COOK. 


F 

e 

T 


VI. 

HAD  but  a  bare  speak- 
ing acquaintance  "with 
the  grim  silent  moun- 
taineer who  was  cook 
to  our  party.  Two  days 
after  he  had  appeared 
like  an  angel  of  heaven  on  our  gloomy 
path  I  had  an  opportunity  of  knowing 
him  better.  I  quote  from  my  journal: 

Camp  Jim,  Shoshone  Range,  Septem- 
ber 23  :  They  left  me  alone  in  camp  to- 
day. No,  the  cook  was  there. 


They  left  me  the  cook  for  protection 
against  the  vast  solitude,  the  mighty 
grandeur  of  the  mountains,  and  the  pos- 
sible, but  improbable,  bear.  Nice  man, 
that  cook  —  he  confessed  with  pride  to 
many  robberies  and  three  murders!  Only 
a  month  before  engaging  as  cook  on 
this  trip,  he  had  been  serving  a  life  term 
for  murder;  but  had  been  released 
through  some  political  'pull.' 

Our  host,  in  company  with  another 
game  warden,  had  discovered  him  in 
the  mountains,  where  he  had  gone 
immediately  from  the  penitentiary  and 
resumed  his  unlawful  life  of  killing 
game.  But  he  had  hidden  his  prizes  so 
effectively  that  there  was  no  evidence 
but  his  own,  which,  of  course,  is  not 
accepted  in  law.  Thus  he  welcomed 
these  two  men  of  justice  to  his  camp, 
told  graphically  of  his  killing  —  then 


offered  them  a  smoke,  smiling  the  while 
at  their  discomfiture. 

N  Both  his  face  and  hands  were  scarred 

J\     from  many  bar  room  encounters,  and  he 
D      unblushingly  dated  most  of  his  remarks 
P      by  the  period  when  he  '  was  rusticatin' 
o      in  the  Pen.'     He  had  brought  his  own 
bed  and  saddle  and  pack  horses  on  the 
trip  so  that  he  could  '  cut  loose '  from 
the  party  in  case  *  things  got  too  hot '  for 
him. 

Such  was  the  cook. 
Immediately  after  breakfast  Nimrod 
and  our  host  equipped  themselves  for 
the  day's  hunt,  and  went  off  in  opposite 
directions,  like  Hvck  Finn  and  rfom  Saw- 
yer on  the  occasion  of  their  memorable 
first  smoke. 

Our  camp  was  beside  a  rushing  brook 
in  a  little  glade  that  was  tucked  at  the 
foot  of  towering  mountains  where  no 


man  track  had  been  for  years,  if  ever. 
Around  us  sighed  the  mighty  pines  of 
the  limitless  forest.  Hundreds  of  miles 
away,  beyond  the  barrier  of  nature,  were 
human  hives  weary  of  the  noise  and  strife 
of  their  own  making.  Here,  alone  in  the 
solitudes,  were  two  human  atoms  wander- 
ing on  the  trail  of  the  hunted,  and  —  the 
cook  and  I. 

I  sat  on  my  rubber  bed  in  the  tent  and 
thought  —  there  was  nothing  else  to  do 
—  and  was  cold,  cold  from  the  outside 
in,  and  from  the  inside  out.  There  wasn't 
a  thing  alive,  not  even  myself —  no  one 
but  the  cook. 

Outside,  I  could  hear  him  washing 
the  breakfast  tinware,  and  whistling  some 
kind  of  a  jiggling  tune  that  ran  up  and 
down  me  like  a  shiver.  This  went  on 
for  an  eternity. 

Suddenly  it  stopped,  and  I  heard  the 


w 

8 

!£ 


faintest  crunch  on  the  thin  layer  01 
snow  and  the  rattling  of  more  snow  as 
it  slid  off  my  tent  from  a  blow  that  had 
been  struck  on  the  outside. 

I  jumped  to  the  door  of  the  tent.  It 
was  the  cook. 

"  Purty  cold  in  there,  ain't  it  ?  You'd 
a  good  sight  better  come  to  the  fire. 
Ain't  you  got  a  slicker*?" 

I  put  on  a  mackintosh  and  overshoes 
and  went  to  the  fire.  The  weather  was 
now  indulging  in  a  big  flake  snow  that 
slid  stealthily  to  the  ground  and  disap- 
peared into  water  on  whatever  obstacle  it 
found  there.  It  found  me.  The  cook 
was  cleaning  knives  —  the  cooking 
knives,  the  eating  knives,  and  a  full 
set  of  hunting  knives,  long  and  short, 
slim  and  broad,  all  sharp  and  efficacious. 

He  handled  them  lovingly,  rubbed 
off  some  blood  rust  here  and  there,  and 


occasionally  whetted  one  to  a  still  more 
razor  edge  and  threw  it  into  a  near  by 
tree,  where  it  stuck,  quivering. 

There  was  no  conversation,  but  I  did 
not  feel  forgotten. 

I  turned  my  back  on  the  cook  and 
gazed  into  the  fire,  a  miserable  smould- 
ering affair,  and  speculated  on  why  I 
had  never  before  noticed  how  much 
spare  time  there  was  in  a  minute.  It 
may  have  been  five  of  these  spacious 
minutes,  it  may  have  been  fifteen,  that 
had  passed  away  when  the  cook  ap- 
proached me.  I  could  feel  him  com- 
ing. He  came  very  close  to  me  —  and 
to  the  fire. 

He  put  on  some  beans. 

Then  he  went  away,  and  there  were 
many  more  minutes,  many  more. 

Then  something  touched  my  arm. 
At  last  it  had  come  (what  we  expect, 


WHETTED    ONE    TO   A   RAZOR    EDGE   AND    THREW   IT    INTO    A  TREE 
WHERE    IT   STUCK    QUIVERING. 


N 


if  it  be  disagreeable,  usually  does  come), 
I  never  moved  a  muscle.  This  time 
the  pressure  on  my  arm  was  unmis- 
takable. I  turned  quickly  and  saw  — 
the  cook  —  with  a  gun  ! 

The  cook,  gun,  knives,  fire,  snow, 
and  stars  danced  a  mad  jig  before  me 
for  an  instant.  Then  the  cook  suddenly 
resumed  his  proper  position,  and  I  saw 
that  his  disengaged  hand  was  held  in  an 
attitude  of  warning  for  silence.  He 
pointed  off  into  the  woods  and  appeared 
to  be  listening.  Soon  I  thought  I  heard 
a  snapping  of  a  branch  away  off  up  the 
mountain. 

"Bear,"  the  cook  whispered.  "Fol- 
low me." 

I  followed.  It  was  hard  work  to  get 
over  logs  and  stones  without  noise,  in  a 
long  mackintosh,  and,  besides,  I  wished 
that  I  had  brought  a  gun.  I  should 


,I24 


have  felt  more  comfortable  about  both 
man  and  beast.  I  struggled  on  for  a 
while,  when  the  thought  suddenly  struck 
home  that  if  I  went  farther  I  should  not 
be  able  to  find  my  way  back  to  camp. 
Everything  is  relative,  and  those  empty 
tents  and  smouldering  fire  seemed  a 
haven  of  security  compared  to  the  sit- 
uation of  being  unarmed,  and  lost  in 
the  wilderness  —  with  the  cook. 

I  watched  my  chance  and  sneaked 
back  to  camp  to  get  a  gun.  I  was 
willing  to  believe  the  cook's  bear  story, 
but  I  wanted  a  gun.  When  I  got  to 
camp  there  were  many  good  reasons  for 
not  going  back. 

After  a  time  I  heard  two  shots  close 
at  hand,  and  soon  the  cook  appeared. 
He  said  he  could  not  find  the  bear's 
track,  and  lost  me,  so  thought  he  had 
better  look  me  up  and  be  on  hand  in 


w      case  I  had  returned  to  camp,  and  the 
M      bear  should  come. 

A 

I  thanked  the  cook  for  his  solicitude. 
Jn  To  while  away  the  time,  I  put  up  a 
D  target  and  commenced  practising  with 
a  30-30  rifle  at  fifty  yards  range. 

I  shot  very  badly. 

The  cook  obligingly  interested  him- 
self in  my  performance  and  kept  tally 
on  my  aim,  pointing  out  to  me  when  it 
was  high,  when  it  was  low,  to  the  right 
or  to  the  left. 

Then  he  took  his  six  shooter  and 
put  a  half  dozen  bullets  in  the  bull's- 
eye  offhand. 

I  lost  my  interest  in  shooting. 

The  cook  gave  me  some  lunch,  and 
while  I  was  eating  he  stood  before  the 
fire  looking  at  it  through  the  fingers  of 
his  outstretched  hand,  with  a  queer 
squint  in  his  cold  gray  eyes,  as  though 


sighting  along  a  rifle  barrel,  while  a 
cigarette  hung  limply  from  his  mouth. 

Then  in  response  to  a  winning  smile 
(after  all,  a  woman's  best  weapon)  he 
opened  the  floodgates  of  his  thoughts 
and  poured  into  my  ears  a  succession 
of  bloodcurdling  adventures  over  which 
the  big,  big  *  I '  had  dominated. ; 

"  Yes,"  he  said  musingly  of  his  second 
murder,  as  he  removed  his  squint  from 
the  fire  to  me,  and  a  ghost  of  a  smile 
played  around  his  lips;  "yes,  it  took 
six  shots  to  keep  him  quiet,  and  you 
could  have  covered  all  the  holes  with  a 
cap  box  —  and  his  pard  nearly  got  me. 

"That  was  the  year  I  lost  my  pard, 
Dick  Elsen.  We  was  at  camp  near 
Fort  Fetterman.  We  called  a  man 
'  Red ' —  his  name  was  Jim  Capse. 
Drink  was  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Red  he 
sees  my  pard  passing  a  saloon,  and  he 

•WINES?*  LIQUORS 


says,  *  Hello,  where  did  you  come  from  ? 
Come  and  have  a  drink ! '  Pard  says, 
'  No,  I  don't  want  nothing  ! '  *  Oh, 
come  along  and  have  a  drink ! '  Dick 
says,  '  No,  thanks,  pard,  I'm  not  drink- 
ing to-night.'  '  Well,  I  guess  you'll 
have  a  drink  with  me ' ;  and  Red  pulls 
out  his  six  shooter.  Dick  wasn't  quick 
enough  about  throwing  up  his  hands, 
and  he  gets  killed.  Then  Irish  Mike 
says  to  Red, '  You  better  hit  the  breeze,' 
but  we  ketched  him  —  a  telegraph  pole 
was  handy  —  I  says,  '  Have  you  got 
anything  to  say  ?  '  '  You  write  to  my 
mother  and  tell  her  that  a  horse  fell  on 
me.  Don't  tell  her  that  I  got  hung,' 
Red  says ;  and  we  swung  him." 

By  the  time  he  had  thus  proudly 
stretched  out  his  three  dead  men  before 
my  imagination,  in  a  setting  of  innumer- 
able shooting  scraps  and  horse  stealings, 


the  hunters  returned  —  my  day  with  the 
multi-murderous  cook  was  over  —  and 
nothing  had  happened. 

It  is  only  fair  to  quote  Nimrod's  reply 
to  one  who  criticised  him  for  leaving 
me  thus: 

"Humph!  Do  you  think  I  don't 
know  those  wild  mountaineers  ?  They 
are  perfectly  chivalrous,  and  I  could 
feel  a  great  deal  safer  in  leaving  my 
wife  in  care  of  that  desperado  than  with 
one  of  your  Eastern  dudes." 


if 

A 


VII. 
AMONG  THE  CLOUDS. 


13* 


VII. 

ANY  a  time  as  a  child 
I  used  to  lie  on  my 
back  in  the  grass  and 
stare  far  into  the  wide 
blue  sky  above.  It 
seemed  so  soft,  so  ca- 
ressing, so  far  away,  and  yet  so  near. 
Then,  perhaps,  a  tiny  woolly  cloud  would 
drift  across  its  face,  meet  another  of  its 
kind,  then  another  and  another,  until 
the  massed  up  curtain  hid  the  playful 
blue,  and  amid  grayness  and  chill,  where 
all  had  been  so  bright,  I  would  hurry 


under  shelter  to  avoid  the  storm.  That, 
outside  of  fairy  books,  an  earthbound 
being  could  actually  be  in  a  cloud,  was 
beyond  my  imagination.  Indeed,  it 
seems  strange  now,  and  were  it  not  for 
the  absence  of  a  cherished  quirt,  I  should 
be  ready  to  think  that  my  cloud  experi- 
ence had  been  a  dream. 

The  day  before,  we  had  been  in  a 
great  hurry  to  cross  the  Wind  River 
Divide  before  a  heavy  snowfall  made 
travel  difficult,  if  not  impossible.  We 
had  no  wish  to  be  snowbound  for  the 
winter  in  those  wilds,  with  only  two 
weeks'  supply  of  food,  and  it  was  for 
this  same  reason  we  had  not  stopped  to 
hunt  that  grizzly  who  had  left  a  fourteen 
inch  track  over  on  Wiggins'  Creek  - 
the  same  being  Wahb  of  the  Big  Horn 
Basin,  about  whom  I  shall  have  some- 
thing to  say  later. 


ft 


133 


r 

w  We  were  now  camped  in  a  little  val- 

8       ley   whose    creek    bubbled    pleasantly 

under  the  ice.     Having  cleared  away 


three  feet  of  snow  for  our  tents,  we  de- 
cided to  rest  a  day  or  two  and  hunt,  as 
we  were  within  two  days'  easy  travel  of 
o       the  first  ranch  house. 

T 

It  was  cold  and  snowy  when  Nimrod 
and  I  started  out  next  morning  to  look 
for  mountain  sheep.  I  followed  Nim- 
rod's  horse  for  several  miles  as  in  a 
trance,  the  white  flakes  falling  silently 
around  me,  and  wondered  how  it  would 
be  possible  for  any  human  being  to 
find  his  way  back  to  camp  ;  but  I  had 
been  taught  my  lesson,  and  kept  silent. 

I  even  tried  to  make  mental  notes  01 
various  rocks  and  trees  we  passed,  but 
it  was  hopeless.  They  all  looked  alike 
to  me.  In  a  city,  no  matter  how  big  or 
how  strange,  I  can  find  home  unerring- 


ly,  and  Nimrod  is  helpless  as  a  babe. 
In  the  mountains  it  is  different.  When 
I  finally  raised  my  eyes  from  the  horse's 
tail  in  front,  it  was  because  the  tail  and 
the  horse  belonging  to  it  had  stopped 
suddenly. 

We  were  in  the  middle  of  a  brook. 
It  is  highly  unpleasant  to  be  stopped  in 
the  middle  of  an  icy  brook  when  your 
horse's  feet  break  through  the  ice  at  each 
step,  and  you  cannot  be  sure  how  deep 
the  water  is,  nor  how  firm  the  bottom 
he  is  going  to  strike,  especially  as  ice- 
covered  brooks  are  Blondey's  pet  abhor- 
rence, and  the  uncertainty  of  my  progress 
was  emphasised  by  Blondey's  attempts  to 
cross  on  one  or  two  feet  instead  of  four. 

However,  I  looked  dutifully  in  the 
direction  Nimrod  indicated  and  saw 
a  long  line  of  elk  heads  peering  over 
the  ridge  in  front  and  showing  darkly 


against  the  snow.  They  were  not 
startled. 

Those  inquisitive  heads,  with  ears 
alert,  looked  at  us  for  some  time,  and 
then  leisurely  moved  out  of  sight.  We 
scrambled  out  of  the  stream  and  com- 
menced ascending  the  mountain  after 
them.  The  damp  snow  packed  on 
Blondey's  hoofs,  so  that  he  was  walking 
on  snowballs.  When  these  got  about 
five  inches  high,  they  would  drop  off  and 
begin  again.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
these  varying  snowballs  did  not  help 
Blondey's  sure-footedness,  especially  as 
the  snow  was  just  thick  enough  to  con- 
ceal the  treacherous  slaty  rocks  beneath. 
For  the  first  time  I  understood  the 
phrase,  to  be  '  all  balled  up.' 

Between  being  ready  to  clear  myself 
from  the  saddle  and  jump  off  on  the  up 
side,  in  case  Blondey  should  fall,  and 


0 


keeping  in  sight  of  the  tail  of  the  other 
horse,  I  had  given  no  attention  to  the 
landscape. 

Suddenly  I  lost  Nimrod,  and  every- 
thing was  swallowed  up  in  a  dark  misty 
vapour  that  cut  me  off  from  every  object. 
Even  Blondey's  nose  and  the  ground  at 
my  feet  were  blurred.  Regardless  of 
possibly  near-by  elk,  I  raised  a  frightened 
yell.  My  voice  swirled  around  me  and 
dropped.  I  tried  again,  but  the  sound 
would  not  carry. 

The  icy  vapour  swept  through  me  — 
a  very  lonely  forlorn  little  being  indeed. 
I  just  clung  to  the  saddle,  trusting  to 
Blondey's  instinct  to  follow  the  other 
animal,  and  tried  to  enjoy  the  fact  that 
I  was  getting  a  new  sensation.  Even 
when  one  could  see,  every  step  was 
treacherous,  but  in  that  black  fog  I 
might  as  well  have  been  blind  and  deaf. 


Then  Blondey  dislodged  some  loose 
rock,  and  went  sliding  down  the  moun- 
tain  with  it.  There  was  not  a  thing  I 
could  do,  so  I  shut  my  eyes  for  an 
instant.  We  brought  up  against  a 
boulder,  fortunately,  with  no  special 
damage  —  except  to  my  nerves.  Not 
being  a  man,  I  don't  pretend  to  having 
enjoyed  that  experience  —  and  there, 
not  six  feet  away,  was  a  ghostly  figure 
that  I  knew  must  be  Nimrod. 

He  did  not  greet  me  as  a  long  lost, 
for  such  I  surely  felt,  but  merely  re- 
marked in  a  whisper : 

"We  are  in  a  cloud  cap.  It  is  set- 
tling down.  The  elk  are  over  there. 
Keep  close  to  me."  And  he  started  along 
the  ridge.  I  felt  it  was  so  thoughtful  of 
him  to  give  me  this  admonition.  I  would 
much  rather  have  been  returned  safely 
to  camp  without  further  injury  and  be- 


fore  I  froze  to  the  saddle;  but  I  grimly 
kept  Blondey's  nose  overlapping  his 
mate's  back  and  said  nothing  —  not  even 
when  I  discovered  that  my  cherished  rid- 
ing whip  had  left  me.  It  probably  was  not 
fifty  feet  away,  on  that  toboggan  slide, 
but  it  seemed  quite  hopeless  to  find  any- 
thing in  the  freezing  misty  grayness  that 
surrounded  us. 

We  continued  our  perilous  passage. 
Then  I  was  rewarded  by  a  sight  seldom 
accorded  to  humans.  It  was  worth  all 
the  fatigue,  cold,  and  bruises,  for  that 
appallingly  illogical  cloud  cap  took  a 
new  vagary.  It  split  and  lifted  a  little, 
and  there,  not  three  hundred  yards  away, 
in  the  twilight  of  that  cold  wet  cloud, 
on  that  mountain  in  the  sky,  were  two 
bull  elk  in  deadly  combat.  Their  far 
branching  horns  were  locked  together, 
and  they  swayed  now  this  way,  now 


I 


NOT    THREE    HUNDRED   YARDS   AWAY  .  .  .  WERE    TWO    BULL    ELK 
IN    DEADLY   COMBAT. 


,      that,  as  they  wrestled  for  the  supremacy 

!      of  the   herd  of  does,  which  doubtless 

i      was  not  far  away.     We  could  not  see 

1    clearly :  all  was  as  in  a  dream.     There 

was    not    a    sound,    only   the   blurred 

outlines  through  the  blank  mist  of  two 

mighty  creatures  struggling  for  victory. 

One    brief  glimpse    of  this    mountain 

drama ;  then  they  sank  out  of  sight,  and 

the  numbing  grayness  and  darkness  once 

more  closed  around  us. 

On  the  way  back  to  camp,  Blondey 
shied  at  a  heap  of  decaying  bones  that 
were  still  attached  to  a  magnificent  pair 
of  antlers.  They  were  at  the  foot  of  a 
cliff,  over  which  the  animal  had  prob- 
ably fallen.  The  gruesome  sight  was 
suggestive  of  the  end  of  one  of  those 
shadowy  creatures,  fighting  back  there 
high  up  on  the  mountain  in  the  mist 
and  the  darkness. 


We  saw  no  mountain  sheep,  but  oh, 
the  joy  of  our  camp  fire  that  night! 
For  we  got  back  in  due  time  all  right 

—  Nimrod   and   the   gods  know  how. 
To   feel   the   cheery   dancing   warmth 
from   the   pine    needles   driving   away 
cold  and  misery  was  pure  bliss.     One 
thing  is  certain  about  roughing  it  for 
a  woman: — there    is  no   compromise. 
She  either  sits  in  the  lap  of  happiness 
or  of  misery.    The  two  are  side  by  side, 
and  toss  her  about  a  dozen  times  a  day 

—  but  happiness  never  lets  her  go  for 
long. 


V 


7 


VIII. 
AT  YEDDAR'S. 


VIII. 

IFE  at  Yeddar's  ranch 
on  Green  River,  where 
Nimrod  and  I  left  the 
pack  train,  is  different 
from  life  in  New  York; 
likewise  the  people  are 
different.  And  as  every  Woman-who- 
goes-hunting-with-her-husband  is  sure 
to  go  through  a  Yeddar  experience,  I 
offer  a  few  observations  by  way  of  en- 
lightenment before  telling  how  I  killed 
my  antelope.  (If  you  wish  to  be 
proper,  always  use  the  possessive  for 
animals  you  have  killed.  It  is  a  Wes- 
tern abbreviation  in  great  favour.) 


DIKNIR  reaoy  at  12 


A  two-story  log  house,  a  one-room 
log  office,  a  log  barn,  and,  across  the 
creek,  the  log  shack  we  occupied,  fifty 
miles  from  the  railroad,  and  no  end  of 
miles  from  anything  else,  but  wilderness 
—  that  was  Yeddar's. 

Old  Yeddar  —  Uncle  John,  the 
guides  and  trappers  and  teamsters 
called  him  —  had  solved  the  problem 
of  ideal  existence.  He  ran  this  rough 
road  house  without  any  personal  ex- 
penditure of  labour  or  money.  He  sold 
whisky  in  his  office  to  the  passing 
teamsters  and  guides,  and  relied  upon 
the  same  to  do  the  chores  around  the 
place,  for  which  he  gave  them  grub, 
the  money  for  which  came  from  the 
occasional  summer  tourist,  such  as  we. 

Mrs.  Spiker  '  did '  for  him  in  the 
summer  for  her  board  and  that  of  her 
little  girl,  and  in  the  winter  he  and  a 


pard  or  two  rustled  for  themselves, 
on  bacon,  coffee,  and  that  delectable 
compound  of  bread  and  water  known 
as  camp  sinkers.  He  got  some  money 
for  letting  the  horses  from  two  East- 
ern outfits  run  over  the  surrounding 
country  and  eat  up  the  Wyoming  gov- 
ernment hay.  Thus  he  loafs  on  through 
the  years,  outside  or  inside  his  office, 
without  a  care  beyond  the  getting  of 
his  whisky  and  his  tobacco.  Of  course 
he  has  a  history.  He  claims  to  be 
from  a  '  high  up '  Southern  family, 
but  has  been  a  plainsman  since  1851. 
He  has  lived  among  the  Indians,  has 
several  red-skinned  children  somewhere 
on  this  planet,  and  seems  to  have 
known  all  the  wild  tribe  of  stage  driv- 
ers, miners,  and  frontiersmen  with  rapid- 
firing  histories. 

Once  a  week,  if  the  weather  were 


Y 

A 


fine,  Uncle  John  would  tie  a  towel  and 
a  clean  shirt  to  his  saddle,  throw  one 
leg  across  the  back  of  Jim,  his  cow 
pony,  blind  in  one  eye  and  weighted 
with  years  unknown,  and  the  two  would 
jog  a  mile  or  so  back  in  the  moun- 
tains, to  a  hot  sulphur  spring,  where 
Yeddar  would  perform  his  weekly  toilet. 
He  was  not  known  to  take  off  his 
clothes  at  any  other  time,  and  if  the 
weather  were  disagreeable  the  pilgrim- 
age was  omitted. 

The  cheapest  thing  at  Yeddar's,  ex- 
cept time,  was  advice.  You  could  not 
tie  up  a  dog  without  the  entire  estab- 
lishment of  loafers  bossing  the  job.  A 
little  active  co-operation  was  not  so  easy 
to  get,  however.  One  day  I  watched 
a  freighter  get  stuck  in  the  mud  down 
the  road  'a  piece.'  One  by  one,  the 
whole  number  of  freighters,  moun- 


F 

I 

T 


JJ 
I/ 


taineers  and  guides  then  at  Yeddar's 
lounged  to  the  place,  until  there  were 
nine  able-bodied  men  ranged  in  a  row 
watching  the  freighter  dig  out  his 
wagon.  No  one  offered  to  help  him, 
but  all  contented  themselves  with  crit- 
icising his  methods  freely  and  inquir- 
ing after  his  politics. 

During  the  third  week  of  our  stay, 
Uncle  John  raised  the  price  of  our 
board — and  such  board  ! — giving  as  an 
excuse  that  when  we  came  he  did  not 
know  that  we  were  going  to  like  it  so 
well,  or  stay  so  long !  Please  place 
this  joke  where  it  belongs. 

The  charm  that  held  us  to  this  rough 
place  was  the  abundance  of  game.  The 
very  night  we  got  there,  I  was  standing 
quietly  by  the  cabin  door  at  dusk,  when 
down  the  path  came  two  of  the  prettiest 
does  that  the  whole  of  the  Blacktail 


tribe  could  muster.  Shoulder  to  shoul- 
der, with  their  big  ears  alert,  they  picked 
their  way  along,  and  under  cover  of  the 
deepening  twilight  advanced  to  exam- 
ine the  dwelling  of  the  white  man. 

I  watched  them  with  silent  breath. 
They  were  not  ten  yards  away.  Then 
they  saw  me  and,  wheeling  around, 
stopped,  the  boldest  a  little  in  advance 
of  her  companion,  with  the  right  fore- 
foot raised  for  action.  I  made  no  move. 
The  graceful  things  eyed  me  suspi- 
ciously for  several  seconds  and  then 
advanced  a  little  in  a  one-sided  fashion. 

A  laugh  from  Yeddar's  office,  across 
the  creek,  where  Uncle  John  and  Dave 
were  having  a  quiet  game  of  pinochle, 
caused  a  short  retreat  up  the  road. 
About  fifty  yards  away,  they  stopped, 
and  there,  in  the  twilight,  in  that  wild 
glen,  they  put  themselves  through  a 


DOWN    THE    PATH    CAME    TWO    OF    THE    PRETTIEST    BLACKTAILS. 


series  of  poses  so  graceful,  so  unstudied, 
so  tender,  so  deer-like,  that  my  heart 
was  thrilled  with  joy  at  the  mere  artistic 
beauty  of  the  scene.  Then  the  loud- 
mouthed alarm  of  a  dog  sent  them 
silently  into  the  forest  gloom. 

Nimrod  wanted  some  photographs  of 
animals  from  life,  and  the  energy  which 
we  put  forth  to  obtain  these  was  a  con- 
stant surprise  and  disturbance  to  Uncle 
John  and  his  co-loafers.  They  could 
understand  why  one  might  trap  an  ani- 
mal, but  to  let  it  go  again  unhurt,  after 
spending  hours  over  it  with  a  camera, 
was  a  problem  that  required  many 
drinks  and  much  quiet  cogitation  in 
the  shade  of  the  office. 

For  days  we  tried  to  get  a  wood- 
chuck.  At  last  we  succeeded,  and  I 
find  this  note  written  in  my  journal  for 
that  date :  — 


"Oct.  l^th:  Nimrod  caught  a  wood- 
chuck  to-day,  a  baby  one,  and  we  called 
him  Johnny.  Johnny  stayed  with  us 
all  day  in  his  cage,  while  Nimrod  made 
a  sketch  of  him  and  I  took  his  picture. 
Then,  in  the  late  afternoon,  we  took 
him  back  to  his  home  in  the  stone-clad 
hill,  and  put  him  among  his  brothers 
and  sisters,  who  peeped  cautiously  at  us 
from  various  rocky  niches,  higher  up 
the  hill. 

Little  Johnny  must  have  had  a  great 
deal  to  say  of  the  strange  ways  and  food 
of  the  big  white  animal.  It  must  have 
been  hard,  too,  for  him  to  have  found 
suitable  woodchuck  language  to  express 
his  sensations  when  he  was  carried,  oh ! 
such  a  long  way,  in  a  big  sack  that  grew 
on  the  side  of  his  captor;  and  of  the 
taste  of  peppermint  candy,  which  he  ate 
in  his  prettiest  style,  sitting  on  his 


haunches  and  clutching  the  morsel  in 
both  forepaws  like  any  well-bred  baby 
woodchuck.  And  then  those  delicious 
sugar  cookies  that  Mrs.  Spiker  had  just 
baked !  How  could  he  make  his  igno- 
rant brother  chuckies  appreciate  those 
cookies  !  Poor  little  Johnny  is  a  marked 
woodchuck.  He  has  seen  the  world." 

When  Nimrod  went  hunting  skunks, 
the  group  at  the  office  gave  us  up. 
"  Locoed,  plumb  locoed,"  was  the  ver- 
dict. 

Have  you  ever  been  on  a  skunk 
hunt1?  But  perhaps  you  have  no  preju- 
dices. I  had.  My  code  of  action  for  a 
skunk  was,  if  you  see  a  black  and  white 
animal,  don't  stop  to  admire  its  beau- 
tiful bushy  tail,  but  give  a  good  imita- 
tion of  a  young  woman  running  for  her 
life. 


This  did  not  suit  Nimrod.  He  as- 
sured me  that  there  was  no  danger  if 
we  treated  his  skunkship  respectfully, 
and,  as  I  was  the  photographer,  I  put  on 
my  old  clothes  and  meekly  fell  in  line. 
Nimrod  set  several  box  traps  in  places 
where  skunks  had  been.  These  traps 
were  merely  soap  boxes  raised  at  one 
end  by  a  figure  four  arrangement  of 
sticks,  so  that  when  the  animal  goes  in- 
side and  touches  the  bait  the  sticks  fall 
apart,  down  comes  the  box,  and  the  an- 
imal is  caged  unhurt.  The  next  morn- 
ing we  went  the  rounds.  The  first  trap 
was  unsprung.  The  second  one  was 
down.  Of  course  we  could  not  see  in- 
side. Was  it  empty?  Was  the  occu- 
pant a  rat  or  a  skunk,  and  if  so,  what 
was  he  going  to  do  *? 

Nimrod  approached  the  trap.  Just 
then  a  big  tree  chanced  to  get  between 


me  and  it.  I  stopped,  thinking  that  as 
good  a  place  as  any  to  await  develop- 
ments. 

"  It's  a  skunk  all  right,"  Nimrod  an- 
nounced gleefully. 

The  box  was  rather  heavy,  so  Nim- 
rod went  to  Yeddar's,  which  was  not  far 
away,  to  see  if  he  could  get  one  of  the 
loungers  to  help  carry  the  captive  to  a 
large  wire  cage  that  we  had  rigged  up 
near  our  shack. 

There  were  six  men  near  the  office, 
bronzed  mountaineers,  men  of  guns  and 
grit,  men  who  had  spent  their  lives 
facing  danger;  but, when  it  came  to  fac- 
ing a  skunk,  each  looked  at  Nimrod 
as  one  would  at  a  crazy  man  and  had 
important  business  elsewhere.  For  once 
I  thoroughly  appreciated  their  point  of 
view,  but  as  there  was  no  one  else  I 
took  one  end  of  the  box,  and  we  started. 


It  was  a  precarious  pilgrimage,  but  we 
moved  gently  and  managed  not  to  out- 
rage the  little  animal's  feelings. 

When  the  men  saw  us  coming 
across  the  creek,  with  one  accord  they 
all  went  in  and  took  a  drink. 

We  gingerly  urged  Mr.  Skunk  into 
the  big  cage,  and  with  the  greatest  cau- 
tion, never  making  a  sudden  move,  I 
took  his  picture.  All  was  as  merry  as  a 
marriage  bell,  and  might  have  continued 
so  but  for  that  puppy  Sim.  That  is  the 
trouble  with  skunks;  they  will  lose 
their  manners  if  startled,  and  dogs  startle 
skunks. 

Of  course  the  puppy  barked;  of 
course  the  skunk  did  not  like  it.  He 
ruffled  up  his  cold  black  nose,  and  ele- 
vated his  bushy  tail  —  his  beautiful, 
plumy  tail.  I  opened  the  door  of  his 
cage  and,  snatching  the  puppy,  fled. 


The  skunk  was  a  wise  and  good  ani- 
mal, really  a  gentleman,  if  treated 
politely.  He  appreciated  my  efforts  on 
his  behalf.  He  forbearingly  lowered 
his  tail,  composed  his  fur,  and  walked 
out  of  the  cage  and  into  the  near-by 
woods  as  tamely  as  a  house  tabby  out 
for  a  stroll. 


IX. 
MY  ANTELOPE. 


IX. 


T  was  a  week  later  when 
I  did  something  which 
those  old  guides  could 
understand  and  appre- 
ciate —  I  made  a  dead 
shot.  I  committed  a 
murder,  and  from  that  time,  the  brother- 
hood of  pards  was  open  to  us,  had  we 
cared  to  join.  It  was  all  because  I 
killed  an  antelope. 

Nimrod  and  I  started  out  that  morn- 
ing with  the  understanding  that,  if  we 
saw  antelope,  I  was  to  have  a  chance. 

In  about  six  miles,  Nimrod  spied  two 
white  specks  moving  along  the  rocky 


Vk  \ 

ridge  to  the  east  of  us,  which  rose  ab-  \\| 
ruptly  from  the  plain  where  we  were. 
I  was  soon  able  to  make  out  that  they 
were  antelope.  But  the  antelope  had 
also  seen  us,  and  there  was  as  much 
chance  of  getting  near  to  them,  by  di- 
rect pursuit,  as  of  a  snail  catching  a 
hare.  So  we  rode  on  calmly  northward 
for  half  a  mile,  making  believe  we  had 
not  seen  them,  until  we  passed  out  of 
sight  behind  a  long  hill.  Then  we  be- 
gan an  elaborate  detour  up  the  moun- 
tain, keeping  well  out  of  sight,  until  we 
judged  that  the  animals,  providing 
they  had  not  moved,  were  below  us, 
under  the  rocky  ledge  nearly  a  mile 
back. 

We  tied  up  the  horses  on  that  dizzy 
height,  and  stole,  Nimrod  with  a  car- 
bine, I  with  the  rifle,  along  a  treacherous, 
shaly  bank  which  ended,  twenty  feet 


A   MISSTEP   WOULD    HAVE    SENT    US    FLYING 
OVER    THE    CLIFF. 


below,  in  the  steep  rocky  bluffs  that 
formed  the  face  of  the  cliff.  Every  step 
was  an  agony  of  uncertainty  as  to  how 
far  one  would  slide,  and  how  much 
loose  shale  one  would  dislodge  to  rattle 
p  down  over  the  cliff  and  startle  the  ante- 
o  lope  we  hoped  were  there.  To  move 
about  on  a  squeaking  floor  without  dis- 
turbing a  light  sleeper  is  child's  play 
compared  with  our  progress.  A  mis- 
step would  have  sent  us  flying  over  the 
cliff,  but  I  did  not  think  of  that — my 
only  care  was  not  to  startle  the  shy 
fleet-footed  creatures  we  were  pursuing. 
I  hardly  dared  to  breathe ;  every  muscle 
and  nerve  was  tense  with  the  long  sus- 
pense. 

Suddenly  I  clutched  Nimrod's  arm 
and  pointed  at  an  oblong  tan  coloured 
bulk  fifty  yards  above  us  on  the  moun- 
tain. 


"  Antelope  !  Lying  down ! "  I  whis- 
pered in  his  ear.  He  nodded  and  mo- 
tioned me  to  go  ahead.  I  crawled 
nearer,  inch  by  inch,  my  gaze  riveted 
on  that  object.  It  did  not  move.  I 
grew  more  elated  the  nearer  it  allowed 
me  to  approach.  It  was  not  so  very 
hard  to  get  at  an  antelope,  after  all. 
I  felt  astonishingly  pleased  with  my 
performance.  Then  —  rattle,  crash  — 
and  a  stone  went  bounding  down. 
What  a  pity,  after  all  my  painful  con- 
tortions not  to  do  it !  I  instantly  raised 
the  rifle  to  get  a  shot  before  the  swift 
animal  went  flying  away. 

But  it  was  strangely  quiet.  I  stole 
a  little  nearer — and  then  turned  and 
went  gently  back  to  Nimrod.  He  was 
convulsed  with  silent  and  unnecessary 
laughter.  My  elaborate  stalk  had  been 
made  on — a  nice  buff  stone. 


We  continued  our  precarious  jour- 
ney for  another  quarter  of  a  mile,  when 
I  motioned  that  I  was  going  to  try  to 
get  a  sight  of  the  antelope,  which,  ac- 
cording to  my  notion,  were  under  the 
rock  some  hundred  feet  below,  and 
signed  to  Nimrod  to  stay  behind. 

Surely  my  guardian  angel  attended 
that  descent.  I  slid  down  a  crack  in 
the  rock  three  feet  wide,  which  gave 
me  a  purchase  on  the  sides  with  my 
elbows  and  left  hand.  The  right  hand 
grasped  the  rifle,  to  my  notion  an 
abominably  heavy  awkward  thing. 
One  of  these  drops  was  eight  feet, 
another  twelve.  A  slip  would  probably 
have  cost  me  my  life.  Then  I  crawled 
along  a  narrow  ledge  for  about  the 
width  of  a  town-house  front,  and,  mak- 
ing another  perilous  slide,  landed  on 
a  ledge  so  close  to  the  creatures  I  was 


hunting  that  I  was  as  much  startled  as 
they. 

Away  those  two  beautiful  animals 
bounded,  their  necks  proudly  arched 
and  their  tiny  feet  hitting  the  only  safe 
places  with  unerring  aim.  They  were 
far  out  of  range  before  I  thought  to 
get  my  rifle  in  position,  and  my  ran- 
dom shot  only  sent  them  farther  out  on 
the  plain,  like  drifting  leaves  on  autumn 
wind. 

It  was  impossible  to  return  the  way 
I  had  come ;  so  I  rolled  and  jumped 
and  generally  tumbled  to  the  grassy  hill 
below,  and  waited  for  Nimrod  to  go 
back  along  the  shaly  stretch,  and  bring 
down  the  horses  the  way  they  had  gone 

up- 
Then  we  took  some  lunch  from  the 

saddle  bags  and  sat  down  in  the  wav- 
ing, yellow  grass  of  the  foot  hill  with  a 


sweep  of  miles  before  us,  miles  of  grassy 
M      tableland   shimmering  in  the  clear  air 
VN      like  cloth   of  gold   in  the   sun,  where 
Jn     cattle  grow  fat  and  the  wild  things  still 
D      are  at  home. 

During  lunch  Nimrod  tried  to  con- 
o      vince  me  that  he  knew  all  the  time  that 

T 

the  antelope  I  stalked  on  the  mountain- 
side was  a  stone.  Of  course  wives 
should  believe  their  husbands.  The 
economy  of  State  and  Church  would 
collapse  otherwise.  However,  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  large  band  of  antelope, 
a  sight  now  very  rare  even  in  the  Rock- 
ies, caused  the  profitless  discussion  to 
be  engulfed  in  the  pursuit  of  the  real 
thing. 

The  antelope  were  two  miles  away, 
mere  specks  of  white.  We  could  not 
tell  them  from  the  twinkling  plain  until 
they  moved.  We  mounted  immedi- 


ately  and  went  after  those  antelope — by 
pretending  to  go  away  from  them.  For 
three  hours,  we  drew  nearer  to  the  quietly 
browsing  animals.  We  hid  behind  low 
hills,  and  crawled  down  a  water-course, 
and  finally  dismounted  behind  the  very 
mound  of  prairie  on  the  other  side  of 
which  they  were  resting,  a  happy, 
peaceful  family.  There  were  twenty 
does,  and  proudly  in  their  midst  moved 
the  king  of  the  harem,  a  powerful  buck 
with  royal  horns. 

The  crowning  point  of  my  long  day's 
hunt  was  before  me.  That  I  should 
have  my  chance  to  get  one  of  the  finest 
bucks  ever  hunted  was  clear.  What 
should  I  do,  should  I  hit  or  miss"? 
Fail !  What  a  thought  —  never ! 

Just  then  a  drumming  of  hoofs 
which  rapidly  faded  away  showed  that 
the  wind  had  betrayed  us,  and  the 


whole    band  was   off  like  a  flight   of 
arrows. 

"Shoot!  Shoot!"  cried  Nimrod, 
but  my  gun  was  already  up  and  levelled 
on  the  flying  buck — now  nearly  a  hun- 
dred yards  away. 

Bang !  The  deadly  thing  went  forth 
to  do  its  work.  Sliding  another  car- 
tridge into  the  chamber,  I  held  ready 
for  another  shot. 

There  was  no  need.  The  fleet-footed 
monarch's  reign  was  over,  and  already 
he  had  gone  to  his  happy  hunting 
ground.  The  bullet  had  gone  straight 
to  his  heart,  and  he  had  not  suffered. 
But  the  does,  the  twenty  beating  hearts 
of  his  harem !  There  they  were,  not 
one  hundred  yards  away,  huddled  to- 
gether with  ears  erect,  tiny  feet  alert 
for  the  next  bound  —  yet  waiting  for 
their  lord  and  master,  the  proud  tyrant, 


so  strangely  still  on  the  ground.  Why 
did  he  not  come?  And  those  two  crea- 
tures whose  smell  they  feared — why  did 
he  stay  so  near? 

They  took  a  few  steps  nearer  and 
again  waited,  eyes  and  ears  and  uplift- 
ed hoofs  asking  the  question,  "  Why 
doesn't  he  come?  Why  does  he  let 
those  dreadful  creatures  go  so  close?" 
Then,  as  we  bent  over  their  fallen  hero, 
they  knew  he  was  forever  lost  to  them, 
and  fear  sent  them  speeding  out  of  sight. 


X. 

A  MOUNTAIN  DRAMA. 


177 


X. 

UT  hunting  does  not 
make  one  wholly  a 
brute,  crying,  *  Kill, 
kill  \ '  at  every  chance. 
In  fact  I  have  no  more 
to  confess  in  that  line. 
Another  side  to  it  is  shown  by  an  in- 
cident that  happened  about  a  week  later. 
We  were  riding  leisurely  along,  a  mile 
or  so  from  the  spot  where  my  antelope 
had  yielded  his  life  to  my  vanity,  when 
we  saw,  several  miles  away  in  the  low 
hills,  two  moving  flecks  of  white  which 
might  mean  antelope. 


We  watched.  The  two  spots  came 
rapidly  nearer,  and  were  clearly  ante- 
lope. We  were  soon  able  to  make  out 
that  one  was  being  chased  by  the  other ; 
then  that  they  were  both  bucks,  the 
one  in  the  rear  much  the  heavier  and 
evidently  the  aggressor.  Then  from 
behind  a  hill  came  the  cause  of  it  all — 
a  bunch  of  lady  antelope,  who  kept 
modestly  together  and  to  one  side,  and 
watched  the  contest  that  should  decide 
their  master.  Surely  this  unclaimed 
harem  was  my  doing ! 

All  at  once,  the  two  on-coming  figures 
saw  us.  The  first  one  paused,  doubtful 
which  of  the  two  dangers  to  choose. 
His  foe  caught  up  with  him.  He 
wheeled  and  charged  in  self-defence, 
their  horns  met  with  a  crash,  and  the 
smaller  was  thrown  to  the  ground.  He 
was  clearly  no  match  for  his  opponent. 

He   sprang   to  his  feet.      His  only 


safety  was  in  flight,  but  where  *?  His 
strength  was  nearly  gone.  He  ran  a 
short  distance  away  from  us,  circling 
our  cavalcade.  His  foe  was  nearly  up 
to  him  again.  He  stopped  ah  instant 
with  uplifted  foot,  then  turned  and 
made  directly  for  us.  Three  loaded 
guns  hung  at  our  saddles,  but  no  hand 
went  towards  them.  Not  thirty  feet 
away  from  our  motionless  horses  the 
buck  dropped,  exhausted.  We  could 
easily  have  lassoed  him.  His  adversary 
kept  beyond  gunshot,  not  daring  to  fol- 
low him  into  the  power  of  an  enemy  all 
wild  things  fear;  and  an  eagle  who  had 
perched  on  a  rock  near  by,  in  hopes  of 
a  coming  feast,  flapped  his  wings  and 
slowly  flew  away  to  search  elsewhere  for 
his  dinner.  The  conquering  buck  Walked 
back  to  his  spoils  of  war,  and  soon  mar- 
shalled them  out  of  sight  behind  a  hill. 
The  young  buck  almost  at  our  feet 


quickly  recovered.  He  was  not  seri- 
ously hurt,  only  frightened  and  winded. 
He  rose  to  his  feet  and  stood  for  an  in- 
stant looking  directly  at  us,  his  head 
with  its  growing  horns  held  high  in  the 
air,  as  if  to  thank  us  for  the  protection 
from  a  lesser  foe  he  had  so  boldly  asked  8 
and  so  freely  received  of  an  all  power- 
ful enemy.  Then,  turning,  he  lightly 
sped  over  the  plain  in  an  opposite  direc- 
tion, and  the  eagle,  who  had  kept  us  in 
sight  until  now,  perhaps  with  a  linger- 
ing hope,  rose  swiftly  upwards  and  was 
lost  to  sight. 

One  elk  with  an  eleven-point  crown, 
and  one  antelope,  of  the  finest  ever 
brought  down,  is  the  tax  I  levied  on 
the  wild  things.  Of  the  many,  many 
times  I  have  watched  them  and  left 
them  unmolested,  and  of  the  lessons  they 
have  taught  me,  under  Nimrod's  gui- 


dance,  I  have  not  space  to  tell,  for  the 
real  fascination  of  hunting  is  not  in  the 
killing  but  in  seeing  the  creature  at 
home  amid  his  glorious  surroundings, 
and  feeling  the  freely  rushing  blood,  the 
health-giving  air,  the  gleeful  sense  of 
joy  and  life  in  nature,  both  within  and 
without. 


XI 

WHAT    I   KNOW    ABOUT 

WAHB    OF    THE    BIGHORN 

BASIN. 


XL 

FOURTEEN- INCH 

track  is  big,  even  for  a 
grizzly.  That  was  the 
size  of  Wahb's.  The 
first  time  I  saw  it,  the 
hole  looked  big  enough 
for  a  baby's  bath  tub. 

We  were  travelling  in  Mr.  A.'s  pack 
train  across  the  Shoshones  from  Idaho 
to  Wyoming.  It  was  the  first  of  Octo- 
ber, and  by  then,  in  that  region,  winter 
is  shaking  hands  with  you  —  pleasant 
hands  to  be  sure,  but  a  bit  cool.  The 
night  before  we  had  made  a  picturesque 


camp  on  the  lee  side  of  a  rock  cliff 
which  was  honeycombed  with  caves.  A 
blazing  camp  fire  was  built  at  the  mouth 
of  one  of  these  and  we  lounged  on  the 
rock  ledges  inside,  thoroughly  protected 
from  the  wind  and  cold.  A  storm  was 
brewing.  We  could  hear  the  pine  trees 
whistle  and  shriek  as  they  were  lashed 
about  in  the  forest  across  the  brook. 
The  lurid  light  of  the  fire  showed  us 
ourselves  in  distorted  shadows.  The 
whole  place  seemed  wild  and  wicked, 
like  a  robber  camp,  and  under  its  spell 
one  thought  things  and  felt  things  thaf 
would  have  been  impossible  in  the  sun 
shine,  where  everything  is  revealed.  It 
began  to  snow,  but  we  laughed  at  that. 
What  did  it  matter  in  the  shelter  of  the 
cave  ?  For  the  first  time  in  days  I  was 
thoroughly  toasted  on  all  sides  at  once. 
We  had  changed  abruptly  from  the 


steam-heated  Pullman  to  camping  in 
snow,  and  it  takes  a  few  days  to  get 
used  to  such  a  shock.  We  told  tales  as 
weird  as  the  scene,  until  far  into  the 
night.  The  next  morning  the  sun  was 
bright,  but  the  cook  had  to  cut  a  hole 
in  the  ice  blanket  over  the  brook  to 
get  water.  We  dared  not  linger  at  our 
robber  camp,  for  at  any  time  a  big  snow- 
storm might  come  that  would  cover 
the  Wind  River  Divide,  which  we  had 
to  cross,  with  snow  too  deep  for  the 
horses  to  travel. 

Two  days  later,  the  weather  still 
promising  well,  we  decided  to  camp  for 
a  few  days  on  the  Upper  Wiggin's 
Fork  to  hunt.  It  was  a  lovely  spot; 
one  of  those  little  grassy  parks  which 
but  for  the  uprising  masses  of  mountains 
and  towering  trees  might  have  sur- 
rounded your  country  home. 


That  first  night  as  we  sat  around  the 
camp  fire  there  came  out  of  the  black- 
ness behind  us  a  faint  greeting  — 
Wheres  Who  —  Wheres  Who  —  from  a 
denizen  of  this  mountain  park,  the 
great  horned  owl.  The  next  morning 
we  packed  biscuits  into  our  saddle-bags 
and  separated  for  the  day  into  two  par- 
ties, Nimrod  and  the  Horsewrangler, 
the  Host  and  myself,  leaving  the 
Cook  to  take  care  of  camp.  We  were 
hunting  for  elk,  mountain  lion,  or 
bear.  Nimrod  had  his  camera,  as  well 
as  his  gun,  a  combination  which  the 
Horsewrangler  eyed  with  scant  toler- 
ance. 

The  Host  led  me  down  the  Wiggin's 
Fork  for  two  miles,  when  we  came  out 
upon  a  sandy,  pebbly  stretch  which 
in  spring  the  torrents  entirely  covered, 
but  now  had  been  dried  up  for 


months.  I  was  following  mechanically, 
guiding  Blondey's  feet  among  the 
cobblestones,  for  nature  had  paved  the 
place  very  badly,  without  much  thought 
for  anything  beyond  the  pleasure  of 
being  alive,  when  the  Host  suddenly 
stopped  and  pointed  to  the  ground. 
There  I  made  out  the  track  of  a  huge 
bear  going  the  way  we  were,  and  be- 
yond was  another,  and  another.  Then 
they  disappeared  like  a  row  of  post- 
holes  into  the  distance.  The  Host  said 
there  was  only  one  bear  in  that  region 
that  could  make  a  track  like  that;  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  this  was  beyond 
his  range,  it  must  be  Meeteetsee  Wahb. 
He  got  off  his  horse  and  measured  the 
track  Yes,  the  hind  foot  tracked  four- 
teen inches.  What  a  hole  in  the  ground 
it  looked  ! 

The  Host  said  the  maker  of  it  was 


probably  far  away,  as  he  judged  the 
track  to  be  several  weeks  old.  I  had 
heard  so  many  tales  of  this  monster 
that  when  I  gazed  upon  his  track  I  felt 
as  though  I  were  looking  at  the  auto- 
graph of  a  hero. 

We  saw  other  smaller  grizzly  and 
black  bear  tracks  that  day,  so  it  was 
decided  to  set  a  bear  bait.  Our  Host 
was  a  cattle  king,  and  could  wage  war 
on  bears  with  a  good  conscience.  The 
usual  three-cornered  affair  of  logs  was 
fixed,  the  trap  in  the  centre  and  elk 
meat  as  a  decoy.  Horse  meat  is  more 
alluring,  but  we  deemed  we  would  not 
need  that,  since  we  had  with  us  "  a 
never-failing  bear  charm."  Its  object 
was  to  suggest  a  lady  bear,  and  thus 
attract  some  gallant  to  her  side.  The 
secret  of  the  preparation  of  this  charm 
had  been  confided  to  Nimrod  by  an  old 


hunter  the  year  before.     It  was  a  liquid 
composed  of  rancid  fish  oil,  and  —  but 
N       I  suppose  I  must  not  tell.    A  more  un- 
|\     godly  odour  I  have  never  known.    Nim- 
rod  put  a  few  drops  of  it  on  his  horse's 
feet,  and  all  the  other  horses  straightway 
o       ostracised  him  for  several  days  till  the 
worst  of  it  wore  away.     Even  the  cook 
allowed   "it   was  all-fired  nasty."      So 
some  of  this  bear  charm  went  on  the 
bait. 

The  next  morning,  as  we  started  out 
for  the  day  to  roam  the  mountains,  we 
first  inspected  the  bear  pen.  Nothing 
had  been  near  it.  Indeed  that  charm 
would  keep  everything  else  away,  if  not 
the  bear  himself.] 

The  next  day  it  was  the  same  story, 
but  this  really  was  no  argument  for  or 
against  the  charm,  because,  as  I  was  told, 
bears  in  feeding  usually  make  about  a 


two  weeks'  circuit,  and  although  we 
had  seen  many  tracks  they  were  all  stale, 
demonstrating  in  a  rough  way  that  if 
we  could  linger  for  a  week  or  two  we 
would  be  sure  to  catch  some  one  of  the 
trackers  on  the  return  trip. 

This  we  could  not  do,  as  the  expected 
snow-storm  was  now  threatening,  and 
we  were  still  two  days  from  the  Divide. 
To  be  snowed  up  there  would  be  serious. 
Before  we  could  get  packed  up  the  snow 
began,  falling  steadily  and  quietly  as 
though  reserving  its  forces  for  later  vio- 
lence. We  had  been  travelling  about 
an  hour  from  where  we  broke  camp, 
when  Nimrod  beckoned  me  to  join 
him  where  he  had  halted  with  the 
Horsewrangler  a  little  off  the  line  the 
pack  train  was  following.  I  rode  up 
quietly,  thinking  it  might  be  game. 
But  no;  Horsewrangler  pointed  to  a 


little  bank  where  there  was  a  circular 
opening  in  the  trees.  I  looked,  but  did 
not  understand. 

"Do  you  see  that  dip  in  the  ground 
there  where  the  snow  melts  as  fast  as  it 
drops?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Wai,  that  there's  a  bear  bath." 

"  A  bear's  bath ! "  I  exclaimed,  sus- 
pecting a  hoax. 

"Yes,  a  sulphur  spring.  I  reckon 
this  here  one  belongs  to  the  Big 
Grizzly." 

We  examined  the  place  with  much 
interest,  but  found  no  fresh  tracks,  and 
the  snow  had  covered  most  of  the  stale 
ones,  as  "  of  course  he  ain't  got  no  call 
for  it  in  winter.  Like  as  not,  he's  denned 
up  somewheres  near,  though  it's  a  mite 
early." 

This     was    thrilling.      Perhaps    we 


might  pass  within  a  few  feet  of  Wahb 
and  never  know  it.  It  was  like  being 
told  that  the  ghost  of  the  dear  departed 
is  watching  you.  Nimrod  pointed  out 
to  me  a  tree  with  the  bark  scratched 
and  torn  off  for  several  feet  —  one  of 
Wahb's  rubbing  trees.  He  located  the 
sunning  ledge  for  me,  and  then  we  re- 
luctantly hurried  on,  for  the  journey 
ahead  promised  to  be  long  and  hard. 
Indeed  I  found  it  so. 

There  were  many  indications  that  the 
storm  was  a  serious  one,  and  not  the 
least  of  these  was  the  behaviour  of  the 
little  chief  hare,  or  pika.  As  we  as- 
cended the  rocky  mountain-side  we  saw 
many  of  these  little  creatures  scurrying 
hither  and  thither  with  bundles  of  hay 
in  their  mouths,  which  they  deposited 
in  tiny  hay-cocks  in  sheltered  places 
under  rocks.  So  hard  were  they  work- 


ing  that  they  could  not  even  stop  to  be 
afraid  of  us.  As  all  the  party,  but  my- 
self, knew,  this  meant  bad  weather  and 
winter;  for  these  cute,  overgrown  rats 
are  reliable  barometers,  and  they  gave 
every  indication  that  they  were  belated 
in  getting  their  food  supply,  which  had 
been  garnered  in  the  autumn  after  the 
manner  of  their  kind,  properly  housed 
for  winter  use. 

All  that  day  we  worked  our  way 
through  the  forest  with  the  silent  snow 
deepening  around  us,  ever  up  and  up, 
eight  thousand,  nine  thousand,  ten  thou- 
sand feet.  It  was  an  endless  day  or 
freezing  in  the  saddle,  and  of  snow 
showers  in  one's  face  from  the  overladen 
branches.  I  was  frightfully  cold  and 
miserable.  Every  minute  seemed  the 
last  I  could  endure  without  screeching. 
But  still  our  Host  pushed  on.  It  was 


necessary  to  get  near  enough  to  the  top 
of  the  Continental  Divide  so  that  we 
could  cross  it  the  next  day.  It  began 
to  grow  dark  about  three  o'clock ;  the 
storm  increased.  I  kept  saying  over 
and  over  to  myself  what  I  was  deter- 
mined I  should  not  say  out  loud: 

"  Oh,  please  stop  and  make  camp ! 
I  cannot  stay  in  this  saddle  another 
minute.  My  left  foot  is  frozen.  I 
know  it  is,  and  the  saddle  cramp  is  un- 
bearable. I  am  so  hungry,  so  cold,  so 
exhausted ;  oh,  please  stop ! "  Then, 
having  wailed  this  out  under  my  breath, 
I  would  answer  it  harshly :  "  You 
little  fool,  stop  your  whimpering.  The 
others  are  made  of  flesh  and  blood 
too.  We  should  be  snowbound  if  we 
stopped  here.  Don't  be  a  cry-baby. 
There  is  lots  of  good  stuff  in  you  yet. 
This  only  seems  terrible  because  you 
are  not  used  to  it,  so  brace  up." 


THUS    I    FOUGHT   THROUGH    THE   AFTERNOON. 


o 


Then  1  would  even  smile  at  Nimrod 
who  kept  keen  watch  on  me,  or  wave 
my  hand  at  the  Host,  who  was  in  front. 
This  appearance  of  unconcern  helped 
me  for  a  few  seconds,  and  then  I  would 
begin  the  weary  round  :  "  Oh,  my  foot, 
o  my  back,  my  head ;  I  cannot  endure  it 
another  moment ;  I  can't,  I  can't."  Yet 
all  the  while  knowing  that  I  could  and 
would.  Thus  I  fought  through  the 
afternoon,  and  at  last  became  just  a 
numb  thing  on  the  horse  with  but  one 
thought,  "  I  can  and  will  do  it."  So  at 
last  when  the  order  came  to  camp  in 
four  feet  of  snow  ten  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea,  with  the  wind  and  snow 
blowing  a  high  gale,  I  just  drew  rein 
and  sat  there  on  my  tired  beast. 

We  disturbed  a  band  of  mountain 
sheep  that  got  over  the  deep  snow  with 
incredible  swiftness.  It  was  my  first 
view  of  these  animals,  but  it  aroused  no 


enthusiasm  in  me,  only  a  vague  wonder 
that  they  seemed  to  be  enjoying  them- 
selves. Finally  Nimrod  came  and  pulled 
me  off,  I  was  too  stiff  and  numb  to  get 
down  myself.  Then  I  found  that  the 
snow  was  so  deep  I  could  not  go  four 
feet.  Not  to  be  able  to  move  about 
seemed  to  me  the  end  of  all  things.  I 
simply  dropped  in  the  snow  —  it  was 
impossible  to  ever  be  warm  and  happy 
again  —  and  prepared  at  last  to  weep. 

But  I  looked  around  first  —  Nimrod 
was  coaxing  a  pack  animal  through  the 
snow  to  a  comparatively  level  place 
where  our  tent  and  bed  things  could 
be  placed.  The  Host  was  shovelling 
a  pathway  between  me  and  the  spot 
where  the  Cook  was  coaxing  a  fire.  The 
Horse  wrangler  was  unpacking  the  horses 
alone  (so  that  I  might  have  a  fire  the 
soonerX  They  were  all  grim — doubtless 


as  weary  as  I — but  they  were  all  working 
for  my  ultimate  comfort,  while  I  was 
about  to  repay  them  by  sitting  in  the 
snow  and  weeping.  I  pictured  them  in 
four  separate  heaps  in  the  snow,  all 
weeping.  This  was  too  much;  I  did 
not  weep.  Instead  by  great  effort  I 
managed  to  get  my  horse  near  the  fire, 
and  after  thawing  out  a  moment  unsad- 
dled the  tired  animal,  who  galloped  off 
gladly  to  join  his  comrades,  and  thus  I 
became  once  more  a  unit  in  the  eco- 
nomic force. 

But  bad  luck  had  crossed  its  fingers 
at  me  that  day  without  doubt,  and  I 
had  to  be  taught  another  lesson.  I  tell 
of  it  briefly  as  a  warning  to  other 
women;  of  course  men  always  know 
better,  instinctively,  as  they  know  how 
to  fight.  I  presume  you  will  agree  that 
ignorance  is  punished  more  cruelly  than 


any  other  thing,  and  that  in  most  cases 
good  intentions  do  not  lighten  the 
offence.  My  ignorance  that  time  was 
of  the  effect  of  eating  snow  on  an  empty 
stomach.  My  intentions  were  of  the 
best,  for,  being  thirsty,  I  ate  several 
handfuls  of  snow  in  order  to  save  the 
cook  from  getting  water  out  of  a  brook 
that  was  frozen.  But  my  punishment 
was  the  same  —  a  severe  chill  which 
made  me  very  ill. 

I  had  been  cold  all  day,  but  that  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  having  a  chill. 
I  felt  stuffed  with  snow ;  snow  water  ran 
in  my  veins,  snow  covered  the  earth,  the 
peaks  around  me.  I  was  mad  with 
snow.  They  gave  me  snow  whisky 
and  put  me  beside  a  snow  fire.  I  had 
not  told  any  one  what  I  had  done,  not 
realising  what  was  the  mischief  maker, 
and  it  really  looked  as  though  I  had 
heart  disease,  or  something  dreadful. 


/T 


•s»>' 


They  put  rugs  and  coats  around  me 
till  I  could  not  move  with  their  weight ; 
but  they  were  putting  them  around  a 
snow  woman.  The  only  thing  I  felt 
was  the  icy  wind,  and  that  went  through 
my  shivering,  shaking  self.  The  snow 
<j>  was  falling  quietly  and  steadily,  as  it  had 
fallen  all  day.  We  must  cross  yonder 
divide  to-morrow.  It  was  no  time  to 
be  ill.  Every  one  felt  that,  and  big, 
black  gloom  was  settling  over  the  camp, 
when  I  by  way  of  being  cheerful  re- 
marked to  the  Host :  "  Do  you-ou 
kno-ow,  I  feel  as  though  there  was 
n-nothing  of  me  b-but  the  sno-ow  I  ate 
an  hour  ago." 

"  Snow  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Did  you 
eat  much  *?  Well,  no  wonder  you  are 
ill." 

The  effect  was  instantaneous.  Every- 
body looked  relieved ;  I  was  not  even  a 
heroine. 


"  I  will  soon  cure  you,"  said  the  Host, 
as  he  poured  out  more  whisky,  and  the 
Cook  reheated  some  soup  and  chocolate. 
The  hot  drinks  soon  succeeded  in  thaw- 
ing me  from  a  snow  woman  back  to 
shivering  flesh  and  blood  which  was 
supportable. 

Nimrod  looked  pleasant  again  and 
began  studying  the  mountain  sheep 
tracks.  The  cook  fell  to  whistling 
softly  from  one  side  of  his  mouth,  while 
a  cigarette  dangled  from  the  other,  as 
was  his  wont  when  he  puttered  about 
the  fire.  The  Horsewrangler  was  mak- 
ing everything  tight  for  the  night 
against  wind  and  snow.  The  Host 
lighted  a  cigarette,  a  calm  expression 
glided  over  his  face,  and  he  became 
chatty,  and,  although  the  storm  was  just 
as  fierce  and  the  thermometer  just  as 
low,  peace  was  restored  to  Camp  Snow. 


The  next  day  we  crossed  the  divide, 
and  not  a  day  too  soon.  The  snow  was 
so  deep  that  the  trail  breaker  in  front 
was  in  danger  of  going  over  a  precipice 
or  into  a  rock  crevice  at  any  time. 
After  him  came  the  pack  animals,  so 
§  that  they  could  make  a  path  for  us. 
The  path  was  just  the  width  of  the 
horse,  and  in  some  places  the  walls  of  it 
rose  above  my  head.  In  such  places  I 
had  to  keep  my  feet  high  up  in  the 
saddle  to  prevent  them  from  being 
crushed.  For  a  half  day  we  struggled 
upwards  with  danger  stalking  by  our 
sides,  then  on  the  very  ridge  of  the 
divide  itself,  11,500  feet  in  the  air,  with 
the  icy  wind  blowing  a  hurricane  of 
blinding  snow,  we  skirted  along  a  preci- 
pice the  edge  of  which  the  snow  cov- 
ered so  that  we  could  not  be  sure  when 
a  misstep  might  send  us  over  into 


whatever  is  waiting  for  us  in  the  next 
world. 

But  fortunately  we  did  not  even  lose  a 
horse.  Then  came  the  plunging  down, 
down,  with  no  chance  to  pick  steps 
because  of  the  all-concealing  snow. 
Those,  indeed,  were  "  stirring  times," 
but  we  made  camp  that  night  in  clear 
weather  and  good  spirits.  We  were  on 
the  right  side  of  the  barrier  and  only 
two  days  from  the  Palette  Ranch  —  and 
safety,  not  to  say  luxury. 

If  you  had  Aladdin's  lamp  and  asked 
for  a  shooting  box,  you  could  hardly 
expect  to  find  anything  more  ideal  than 
the  Palette  Ranch.  There  is  no  spot 
in  the  world  more  beautiful  or  more 
health  giving.  It  is  tucked  away  by 
itself  in  the  heart  of  the  Rockies,  150 
miles  from  the  railroad,  40  miles  from 
the  stage  route,  and  surrounded  on  the 


three  sides  by  a  wilderness  of  moun- 
tains. And  when  after  travelling  over 
these  for  three  weeks  with  compass  as 
guide,  one  dark,  stormy  night  we  stum- 
bled and  slipped  down  a  mountain  side 
and  across  an  icy  brook  to  its  front 
lawn,  the  message  of  good  cheer  that 
streamed  in  rosy  light  from  its  windows 
seemed  like  an  opiate  dream. 

We  entered  a  large  living  room,  hung 
with  tapestries  and  hunting  trophies 
where  a  perfectly  appointed  table  was 
set  opposite  a  huge  stone  fireplace, 
blazing  with  logs.  Then  came  a  deli- 
cious course  dinner  with  rare  wines,  and 
served  by  a  French  chef.  The  surprise 
and  delight  of  it  in  that  wilderness — 
but  the  crowning  delight  was  the  guest- 
room. As  we  entered,  it  was  a  wealth 
of  colour  in  Japanese  effect,  soft  glowing 
lanterns,  polished  floors,  fur  rugs,  silk- 


furnished  beds  and  a  crystal  mantel- 
piece  (brought  from  Japan)  which  re- 
fleeted  the  fire-light  in  a  hundred  tints. 
Beyond,  through  an  open  door,  could  be 
seen  the  tiled  bath-room.  It  was  a  room 
that  would  be  charming  anywhere,  but 
in  that  region  a  veritable  fairy's  cham- 
ber.  Truly  it  is  a  canny  Host  who 
can  thus  blend  harmoniously  the  human 
luxuries  of  the  East  and  the  natural 
glories  of  the  West. 

In  our  rides  around  the  Palette  I  saw 
Wahb's  tracks  once  again.  The  Host 
had  taken  us  to  a  far  away  part  of 
his  possessions.  Three  beautiful  wolf 
hounds  frisked  along  beside  us,  when 
all  at  once  they  became  much  excited 
about  something  they  smelt  in  a  little 
scrub-pine  clump  on  the  right.  We 
looked  about  for  some  track  or  sign 


that  would  explain  their  behaviour.  I 
spied  a  huge  bear  track. 

"  Hah  !  "  I  thought,  "  Wahb  at  last," 
and  my  heart  went  pit-a-pat  as  I  pointed 
it  out  to  Nimrod.  He  recognised  it 
but  remained  far  too  calm  for  my  fancy. 
I  pointed  into  the  bushes  with  signs  of 
"  Hurrah,  it's  Wahb."  I  received  in 
reply  a  shake  of  the  head  and  a  pitying 
smile.  How  was  I  to  know  that  the 
dogs  were  saying  as  plainly  as  dogs 
need  to  "  A  bobcat  treed  "  ? 

So  I  followed  meekly  and  soon  saw 
the  bobcat's  eyes  glaring  at  us  from  the 
topmost  branches.  The  Host  took  a 
shot  at  it  with  the  camera  which  the 
lynx  did  not  seem  to  mind,  and  calling 
off  the  disappointed  dogs  we  went  on 
our  way.  The  Host  allows  no  shoot- 
ing within  a  radius  of  twelve  miles  of  the 


Palette.  Any  living  thing  can  find 
protection  there  and  the  result  is  that 
any  time  you  choose  to  ride  forth  you 
can  see  perfectly  wild  game  in  their 
homeland. 

It  was  not  till  the  next  year  that  I 
really  saw  Wahb.  It  was  at  his  sum- 
mer haunt,  the  Fountain  Hotel  in  the 
Yellowstone  National  Park.  If  you 
were  to  ask  Nimrod  to  describe  the 
Fountain  geyser  or  Hell  Hole,  or  any 
of  the  other  tourist  sights  thereabouts, 
I  am  sure  he  would  shake  his  head  and 
tell  you  there  was  nothing  but  bears 
around  the  hotel.  For  this  was  the 
occasion  when  Nimrod  spent  the  entire 
day  in  the  garbage  heap  watching  the 
bears,  while  I  did  the  conventional 
thing  and  saw  the  sights. 

About  sunset  I  got  back  to  the  hotel. 


Much  to  my  surprise  I  could  not  find 
M      Nimrod ;  and  neither  had  he  been  seen 

.  A 

"N       since  morning,  when  he  had  started  in 

|n     the  direction  of  the  garbage  heap  in  the 

D       woods    some    quarter   of  a   mile   back 

from  the  hotel.     Anxiously  I   hurried 

o      there,  but   could  see   no  Nimrod.     In- 

T. 

stead  I  saw  the  outline  of  a  Grizzly 
feeding  quietly  on  the  hillside.  It  was 
very  lonely  and  gruesome.  Under 
other  circumstances  I  certainly  would 
have  departed  quickly  the  way  I  came, 
but  now  I  must  find  Nimrod.  It  was 
growing  dark,  and  the  bear  looked  a 
shocking  size,  as  big  as  a  whale.  Dear 
me,  perhaps  Nimrod  was  inside — Jonah 
style.  Just  then  I  heard  a  sepulchral 
whisper  from  the  earth. 

"  Keep  quiet,  don't  move,  it's  the 
Big  Grizzly." 

I  looked  about  for  the  owner  of  the 


whisper  and  discovered  Nimrod  not  far 
away  in  a  nest  he  had  made  for  himself 
in  a  pile  of  rubbish.  I  edged  nearer. 

"  See,  over  there  in  the  woods  are 
two  black  bears.  You  scared  them 
away.  Isn't  he  a  monster*?"  indicating 
Wahb.  § 

I  responded  with  appropriate  enthu- 
siasm. Then  after  a  respectful  silence  I 
ventured  to  say : 

"  How  long  have  you  been  here  *?  " 

"All  day  —  and  such  a  day  —  thir- 
teen bears  at  one  time.  It  is  worth  all 
your  geysers  rolled  into  one. 

"  H'm  —  Have  you  had  anything  to 
eat  ?  " 

"  No."  Another  silence,  then  I  began 
again. 

"Arn't  you  hungry?  Don't  you 
want  to  come  to  dinner  *?  " 

He   nodded   yes.     Then    I  sneaked 


8 


away  and  came  back  as  soon  as  possible 
with  a  change  of  clothes.  The  scene 
was  as  I  had  left  it,  but  duskier.  I 
stood  waiting  for  the  next  move.  The 
Grizzly  made  it.  He  evidently  had 
finished  his  meal  for  the  night,  and  now 
moved  majestically  off  up  the  hill 
towards  the  pine  woods.  At  the  edge 
of  these  he  stood  for  a  moment,  Wahb's 
last  appearance,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, for,  as  he  posed,  the  fading  light 
dropped  its  curtain  of  darkness  between  ^\ 
us,  and  I  was  able  to  get  Nimrod  away. 


XII. 
THE  DEAD  HUNT. 


XII. 

O  hunt  the  wily  puma, 
the  wary  elk,  or  the 
fleet-footed  antelope 
is  to  have  experiences 
strange  and  varied,  but 
for  the  largest  assort- 
ment of  thrills  in  an  equal  time  the 
'  dead  hunt '  is  the  most  productive. 
My  acquaintance  with  a  '  dead  hunt ' 

—  which  is  by  no  means  a  *  still  hunt ' 

—  began  and  ended  at  Raven  Agency. 
It  included   horses,    bicycles,    and    In- 
dians, and   followed   none  of  the  cus- 
tomary  rules    laid    down   for   a   hunt, 
either  in  progress  or  result. 


And,  not  to  antagonise  the  reader, 
I  will  say  now  that  it  was  very  naughty 
to  do  what  I  did,  an  impolite  and  un- 
generous thing  to  do,  on  a  par  with 
the  making  up  of  slumming  parties  to 
pry  into  the  secrets  of  the  poor.  It 
was  the  act  of  a  vandal,  and  at  times — 
in  the  gray  dawn  and  on  the  first  day 
of  January  —  I  am  sorry  about  it;  but 
then  I  should  not  have  had  that  carved 
bead  armlet,  and  as  that  is  the  tail  of 
my  story,  I  will  put  it  in  the  mouth 
and  properly  begin. 

Nimrod  and  I  went  to  the  United 
States  agency  for  the  Asrapako  or 
Raven  Indians  in  —  well,  never  mind, 
not  such  a  far  cry  from  the  Rockies, 
unless  you  are  one  of  those  uncomfort- 
able persons  who  carry  a  map  of  the 
United  States  in  your  mind's  eye  —  be- 
cause Burfield  was  there  painting  Many 


Whacks,  the  famous  chief;  because 
Nimrod  wanted  to  know  what  kind 
of  beasties  lived  in  that  region  ;  and 
because  I  wanted  a  face  to  face  en- 
counter with  the  Indian  at  home.  I 
got  it. 

The  first  duty  of  a  stranger  at  Raven 
Agency  is  to  visit  the  famous  battle- 
field, three  miles  away;  and  the  Agent, 
an  army  officer,  very  charmingly  made 
up  a  horseback  party  to  escort  us 
there.  He  put  me  on  a  rawboned 
bay  who,  he  said,  was  a  "great  goer." 
It  was  no  merry  jest.  I  was  nearly 
the  last  to  mount  and  quite  the  first  to 
go  flying  down  the  road.  The  Great 
Goer  galloped  all  the  way  there.  His 
mouth  was  as  hard  as  nails,  and  I  could 
not  check  him;  still,  the  ride  was  no 
worse  than  being  tossed  in  a  blanket  for 
half  an  hour. 


On  the  very  spot,  I  heard  the  story 
of  the  tragic  Indian  fight  by  one  who 
claimed  to  have  been  an  eye-witness. 
Every  place  where  each  member  of 
that  heroic  band  fell,  doing  his  duty,  is 
marked  by  a  small  marble  monument, 
and  as  I  looked  over  the  battle  ground 
and  saw  these  symbols  of  beating  hearts, 
long  still  in  death,  clustered  in  twos 
and  threes  and  a  dozen  where  each  had 
made  the  last  stand,  every  pillar  seemed 
to  become  a  shadowy  soldier ;  the  whole 
awful  shame  of  the  massacre  swept  over 
me,  and  I  was  glad  to  head  my  horse  ab- 
ruptly for  home.  And  then  there  were 
other  things  to  think  about,  things 
more  intimate  and  real.  No  sooner 
did  the  Great  Goer's  nose  point  in  the 
direction  of  his  stable  than  he  gave  a 
great  bound,  as  though  a  bee  had  stung 
him;  then  he  lowered  his  head,  laid 
back  his  ears,  and  —  gallopped  home. 


WE   WHIZZED   ACROSS    THE    RAILROAD    TRACK    IN    FRONT    OF 
THE    DAY   EXPRESS. 


I  yanked  and  tugged  at  the  bit.  It 
8  was  as  a  wisp  of  hay  in  his  mouth.  I 
:N  might  as  well  have  been  a  monkey  or  a 
JH  straw  woman  bobbing  up  and  down  on 
D  his  back.  Pound,  pound,  thump,  thump, 
gaily  sped  on  the  Great  Goer.  There 
o  were  dim  shouts  far  behind  me  for  a 

T 

while,  then  no  more.  The  roadside 
whipped  by,  two  long  streaks  of  green. 
We  whizzed  across  the  railroad  track 
in  front  of  the  day  express,  accom- 
panied by  the  engine's  frantic  shriek  of 
"  down  brakes."  If  a  shoe  had  caught 
in  the  track  —  ah !  I  lost  my  hat,  my 
gold  hatpin,  every  hairpin,  and  brown 
locks  flew  out  two  feet  behind. 

Away  went  my  watch,  then  the  all  in 
two  pockets,  knife,  purse,  match-box — 
surely  this  trail  was  an  improvement  on 
Tom  Thumb's  bread  crumbs.  One 
foot  was  out  of  the  stirrup.  I  wrapped 
the  reins  around  the  pommel  and  clung 


on.  There  is  a  gopher  hole  —  that 
means  a  bcoken  leg  for  him,  a  clavicle 
and  a  few  ribs  for  me.  No ;  on  we  go. 
Ah,  that  stony  brook  ahead  we  soon 
must  cross !  Ye  gods,  so  young  and  so 
fair  !  To  perish  thus,  the  toy  of  a  raw- 
boned  Great  Goer ! 

Pound,  pound,  pound,  the  hard  road 
rang  with  the  thunder  of  hoofs.  Could 
I  endure  it  longer*?  Oh,  there  is  the 
stream — surely  he  will  stop.  No  !  He 
is  going  to  jump!  It's  an  awful  dis- 
tance !  With  a  frantic  effort  I  got  my 
feet  in  the  stirrups.  He  gathered  him- 
self together.  I  shut  my  eyes.  Oh ! 
We  missed  the  bank  and  landed  in  the 
water — an  awful  mess.  But  the  Great 
Goer  scrambled  out,  with  me  still  on 
top  somehow,  and  started  on.  I  pulled 
on  the  reins  again  with  every  muscle, 
trying  to  break  his  pace,  or  his  neck — 


I 


anything  that  was  his.  Then  there  was 
a  flapping  noise  below.  We  both 
heard  it,  we  both  knew  what  it  was — 
the  cinch  worked  loose,  that  meant  the 
saddle  loose. 

In  desperation  I  clutched  the  Great 
Goer's  mane  with  both  hands  and,  lean- 
ing forward,  yelled  wildly  in  his  ears: 

"  Whoa,  whoa  !  The  saddle's  turn- 
ing !  Whoa !  Do  you  wa-ant  to  ki-ill 
me?" 

Do  not  tell  me  that  the  horse  is  not  a 
noble,  intelligent  animal  with  a  vast 
comprehension  of  human  talk  and  sym- 
pathy for  human  woe.  For  the  Great 
Goer  pulled  up  so  suddenly  that  I 
nearly  went  on  without  him  in  the  line 
of  the  least  resistance.  Then  he  stood 
still  and  went  to  nibbling  grass  as  pla- 
cidly as  though  he  had  not  been  doing 
racing  time  for  three  miles,  and  I 


should  have  gone  on  forever  believing 
in  his  wondrous  wit  had  I  not  turned 
and  realised  that  he  was  standing  in  his 
own  pasture  lot. 

Seeking  to  console  my  dishevelled 
self  as  I  got  off,  I  murmured,  "  Well, 
it  was  a  sensation  any  way — an  abso- 
lutely new  one,"  just  as  Nimrod  gal- 
lopped  up,  and  seeing  I  was  all  right, 
called  out : 

"  Hello,  John  Gilpin ! "  That  is  the 
way  with  men. 

My  scattered  belongings  were  gath- 
ered up  by  the  rest  of  the  party,  and 
each  as  he  arrived  with  the  relic  he  had 
gathered,  made  haste  to  explain  that  his 
horse  had  no  chance  with  my  mount. 

I  thanked  the  Agent  for  the  Great 
Goer  without  much  comment.  (See 
advice  to  Woman-who-goes-hunting- 
with-her-husband.)  But  that  is  why, 


the  next  day,  when  Burfield  confided 
to  me  that  he  knew  where  there  were 
some  '  Dead-trees '  (not  dead  trees) 
that  could  be  examined  without  fear 
of  detection,  I  preferred  to  borrow  the 
doctor's  wife's  bicycle. 

Dead-trees?  Very  likely  you  know 
what  I  did  not  until  I  saw  for  myself, 
that  the  Asrapako,  in  common  with 
several  Indian  tribes,  place  their  dead 
in  trees  instead  of  in  the  ground.  As 
the  trees  are  very  scarce  in  that  arid 
country,  and  only  to  be  found  in  gullies 
and  along  the  banks  of  the  Little  Big 
Buck  River,  nearly  every  tree  has  its 
burden  of  one  or  more  swathed-up 
bodies  bound  to  its  branches,  half  hid- 
den by  the  leaves,  like  great  cocoons 
—  most  ghastly  reminders  of  the  end 
of  all  human  things. 

It  was  to  a  cluster  of  these  '  dead- 


trees,'  five  miles  away,  that  Burfielcl 
guided  me,  and  it  was  on  this  ride  that 
the  wily  wheel,  stripped  of  all  its  glam- 
our of  shady  roads,  tete-a-tetes,  down 
grades,  and  asphalts,  appeared  as  its 
true,  heavy,  small  seated,  stubborn  self. 
I  can  undertake  to  cure  any  bicycle 
enthusiast.  The  receipt  is  simple  and 
here  given  away.  First,  take  two 
months  of  Rocky  Mountains  with  a 
living  sentient  creature  to  pull  you  up 
and  down  their  rock-ribbed  sides,  to 
help  out  with  his  sagacity  when  your 
own  fails,  and  to  carry  you  at  a  long 
easy  lope  over  the  grassy  uplands  some 
eight  or  ten  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea  in  that  glorious  bracing  air.  Sec- 
ondly, descend  rapidly  to  the  Montana 
plains — hot,  oppressive,  enervating — or 
to  the  Raven  Agency,  if  you  will,  and 
attempt  to  ride  a  wheel  up  the  only  hill 


in  all  that  arid  stretch  of  semi  desert,  a 
rise  of  perhaps  three  hundred  feet. 

It  is  enough.  You  will  find  that  your 
head  is  a  sea  of  dizziness,  that  your 
lungs  have  refused  to  work,  that  your 
heart  is  pounding  aloud  in  agony,  and 
you  will  then  and  there  pronounce  the 
wheel  an  instrument  of  torture,  devised 
for  the  undoing  of  woman. 

I  tried  it.  It  cured  me,  and,  once 
cured,  the  charms  of  the  wheel  are  as 
vapid  as  the  defence  of  a  vigilant  com- 
mittee to  the  man  it  means  to  hang. 
Stubborn  —  it  would  not  go  a  step  with- 
out being  pushed.  It  would  not  even 
stand  up  by  itself,  and  I  literally  had  to 
push  it — it,  as  well  as  myself  on  it — in 
toil  and  dust  and  heat  the  whole  way. 
Nimrod  said  his  bicycle  betrayed  itself, 
too,  only  not  so  badly.  Of  course,  that 
was  because  he  was  stronger.  The 


weaker  one  is,  the  more  stubbornly  bi- 
cycles behave.  Every  one  knows  that. 
And  they  are  so  narrow  minded.  They 
needs  must  stick  to  the  travelled  road, 
and  they  behave  viciously  when  they 
get  in  a  rut.  Imagine  hunting  ante- 
lope across  sage-brush  country  on  a 
bicycle  !  I  know  a  surveyor  who  tried 
it  once.  They  brought  him  home  with 
sixteen  broken  bones  and  really  quite 
a  few  pieces  of  the  wheel,  improved  to 
Rococo.  Bah  !  Away  with  it  and  its 
limitations,  and  those  of  its  big  brother, 
the  automobile !  Sing  me  no  death 
knell  of  the  horse  companion. 

At  last,  with  the  assistance  of  trail 
and  muscle,  the  five  miles  were  cov- 
ered, and  we  came  to  a  dip  in  the  earth 
which  some  bygone  torrent  had  hol- 
lowed out,  and  so  given  a  chance  for  a 
little  moisture  to  be  retained  to  feed 


I 


the  half-dozen  cottonwoods  and  rank 
grass  that  dared  to  struggle  for  exist- 
ence in  that  baked  up  sage-brush  waste 
which  the  government  has  set  aside  for 
the  Raven  paradise. 

We  jumped  —  no,  that  is  horse  talk 
—  we  sprawled  off  our  wheels  and  left 
the  stupid  things  lying  supinely  on 
their  sides,  like  the  dead  lumpish 
things  they  are,  and  descended  a  steep 
bank  some  ten  feet  into  the  gully. 

It  was  a  gruesome  sight,  in  the  hour 
before  sunset,  with  not  a  soul  but  our- 
selves for  miles  around.  The  lowering 
sun  lighted  up  the  under  side  of  the 
leaves  and  branches  and  their  strange 
burdens,  giving  an  effect  uncanny  and 
weird,  as  though  caused  by  unseen  foot- 
lights. Not  a  sound  disturbed  the  op- 
pressive quiet,  not  the  quiver  of  a  twig. 
Five  of  the  six  trees  bore  oblong  bun- 


dies,  wrapped  in  comforters  and  blank- 
ets, and  bound  with  buckskin  to  the 
branches  near  the  trunk,  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet  from  the  ground,  too  high 
for  coyotes,  too  tight  for  vultures.  But 
what  caught  our  attention  as  we 
dropped  into  the  gully  was  one  of  the 
bundles  that  had  slipped  from  its  fas- 
tenings and  was  hanging  by  a  thong. 

It  needed  but  a  tug  to  pull  it  to  the 
ground.  Burfield  supplied  that  tug, 
and  we  all  got  a  shock  when  the 
wrappings,  dislodged  by  the  fall,  parted 
at  one  end  and  disclosed  the  face  of  a 
mummy.  I  had  retreated  to  the  other 
end  of  the  little  dip,  not  caring  to  wit- 
ness some  awful  spectacle  of  disinte- 
gration; but  a  mummy  —  no  museum- 
cased  specimen,  labelled  *  hands  off,'  but 
a  real  mummy  of  one's  own  finding 
— was  worth  a  few  shudders  to  examine. 


I  looked  into  the  shrivelled,  but 
otherwise  normal,  face  of  the  Indian 
woman.  What  had  been  her  life,  her 
heart  history,  now  as  completely  gone 
as  though  it  had  never  been  —  thirty 
years  of  life  struggle  in  snow  and  sun, 
o  with,  perhaps,  a  little  joy,  and  then 
what? 

Seven  brass  rings  were  on  her  thumb 
and  a  carved  wooden  armlet  encircled 
the  wrist.  These  I  was  vandal  enough 
to  accept  from  Burfield.  There  were 
more  rings  and  armlets,  but  enough  is 
enough.  As  the  gew-gaws  had  a  pecu- 
liar, gaseous,  left-over  smell,  I  wrapped 
them  in  my  gloves,  and  surely  if  trifles 
determine  destiny,  that  act  was  one  of 
the  trifles  that  determined  the  fact  that 
I  was  to  be  spared  to  this  life  for  yet  a 
while  longer.  For,  as  I  was  carelessly 
wrapping  up  my  spoil,  with  a  nose  very 


much  turned  up,  Burfield  suddenly 
started  and  then  began  bundling  the 
wrappings  around  the  mummy  at  great 
speed.  Something  was  serious.  I  stoop- 
ed to  help  him,  and  he  whispered : 

"  Thought  I  heard  a  noise.  If  the 
Indians  catch  us,  there'll  be  trouble, 
I'm  afraid." 

We  hastily  stood  the  mummy  on 
end,  head  down,  against  the  tree,  and 
tried  to  make  it  look  as  though  the 
coyotes  had  torn  it  down,  after  it  had 
fallen  within  reach,  as  indeed  they  had, 
originally.  Then  we  crawled  to  the 
other  end  of  the  gully,  scrambled  up 
the  bank,  and  emerged  unconcernedly. 

There  was  nothing  in  sight  but  long 
stretches  of  sage  brush,  touched  here 
and  there  by  the  sun's  last  gleams.  We 
were  much  relieved.  Said  Burfield: 

"  The  Indians  are  mighty  ugly  over 


that  Spotted  Tail  fight,  and  if  they  had 
caught  us  touching  their  dead,  it  might 
have  been  unhealthy  for  us." 

"Why,  what  would  they  do?"  I 
asked,  suddenly  realising  what  many 
white  men  never  do — that  Indians  are 
emotional  creatures  like  ourselves.  The 
brass  rings  became  uncomfortably  con- 
spicuous in  my  mind. 

"  Well,  I  don't  suppose  they  would 
dare  to  kill  us  so  close  to  the  agency, 
but  I  don't  know ;  a  mad  Injun's  a  bad 
Injun." 

Nevertheless,  this  opinion  did  not 
deter  him  from  climbing  a  tree  where 
three  bodies  lay  side  by  side  in  a  curi- 
ous fashion;  but  I  had  no  more  in- 
terest in  'dead-trees,'  and  fidgeted. 
Nimrod  had  wandered  off  some  dis- 
tance and  was  watching  a  gopher  hole- 
up  for  the  night.  The  place  in  the  fad- 


ing  light  was  spooky,  but  it  was  of  live 
Indians,  not  dead  ones,  that  I  was 
thinking. 

There  is  a  time  for  all  things,  and 
clearly  this  was  the  time  to  go  back  to 
Severin's  dollar-a-day  Palace  Hotel. 
I  started  for  the  bicycles  when  two 
black  specks  appeared  on  the  horizon 
and  grew  rapidly  larger.  They  could 
be  nothing  but  two  men  on  horseback 
approaching  at  a  furious  gallop.  It 
was  but  yaller-covered-novel  justice  that 
they  should  be  Indians. 

"Quick,  Burfield,  get  out  of  that 
tree  on  the  other  side ! "  It  did  not 
take  a  second  for  man  and  tree  to  be 
quit  of  each  other,  at  the  imminent 
risk  of  broken  bones.  I  started  again 
for  the  wheels. 

"  Stay  where  you  are,"  said  Bur- 
field  ;  "  we  could  never  get  away  on 


those  things.      If  they  are  after  us,  we 
must  bluff  it  out." 

There  was  no  doubt  about  their 
being  after  us.  The  two  galloping  fig 
ures  were  pointed  straight  at  us  and 
were  soon  close  enough  to  show  that 
they  were  Indians.  We  stood  like 
posts  and  awaited  them.  Thud,  thud 
— ta-thud,  thud — on  they  charged  at  a 
furious  pace  directly  at  us.  They  were 
five  hundred  feet  away — one  hundred 
feet  —  fifty. 

Now,  I  always  take  proper  pride  in 
my  self  possession,  and  to  show  how 
calm  I  was,  I  got  out  my  camera,  and 
as  the  two  warriors  came  chasing  up 
to  the  fifty-foot  limit,  I  snapped  it.  I 
had  taken  a  landscape  a  minute  before, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  the  fact  that 
that  landscape  and  those  Indians  ap- 
peared on  the  same  plate  is  any  proof 


that  I  was  in  the  least  upset  by  the  red 
men's  onset.  Forty  feet,  thirty  —  on 
they  came — ten — were  they  going  to 

run  us  down  ? 

H 
Five    feet   full    in   front  of  us  they      | 

pulled  in  their  horses  to  a  dead  stop — 
unpleasantly  close,  unpleasantly  sud-  £ 
den.  Then  there  was  an  electric  si- 
lence, such  as  comes  between  the  light- 
ning's flash  and  the  thunder's  crack. 
The  Indians  glared  at  us.  We  stared 
at  the  Indians,  each  measuring  the 
other.  Not  a  sound  broke  the  still- 
ness of  that  desolate  spot,  save  the 
noisy  panting  of  the  horses  as  they 
stood,  still  braced  from  the  shock  of 
the  sudden  stop. 

For  three  interminable  minutes  we 
faced  each  other  without  a  move. 
Then  one  of  the  Indians  slowly  roved 
his  eyes  all  over  the  place,  searching 


FIVE    FEET    FULL    IN    FRONT    OF    US,   THEY   PULLED    THEIK    HORSES 
TO  A   DEAD   STOP. 


suspiciously.  From  where  he  stood 
the  tell-tale  mummy  was  hidden  by  the 
bank  and  some  bushes,  and  the  tell-tale 
brass  rings  and  armlet  were  in  my 
gloves  which  I  held  as  jauntily  as  pos- 
sible. He  saw  nothing  wrong.  He 
turned  again  to  us.  We  betrayed  no 
signs  of  agitation.  Then  he  spoke 
grimly,  with  a  deep  scowl  on  his  ugly 
face : 

"No  touch  'em;  savey*?"  giving  a 
significant  jerk  of  the  head  towards  the 
trees. 

We  responded  by  a  negative  shake 
of  the  head.  Oh,  those  brass  rings ! 
Why  did  I  want  to  steal  brass  rings 
from  the  left  thumb  of  an  Indian  wo- 
man mummy !  Me  !  I  should  be  carv- 
ing my  name  on  roadside  trees  next ! 

There  was  another  silence  as  before. 
None  of  us  had  changed  positions,  so 


much  as  a  leaf's  thickness.  Then  the 
second  Indian,  grim  and  ugly  as  the 
first,  spoke  sullenly : 

"No  touch  'em;  savey*?"  He  laid 
his  hand  suggestively  on  something  in 
his  belt. 

Again  we  shook  our  heads  in  a  way 
that  deprecated  the  very  idea  of  such  a 
thing.  They  gave  another  dissatisfied 
look  around,  and  slowly  turned  their 
horses. 

We  waited  breathless  to  see  which 
way  they  would  go.  If  they  went  on 
the  other  side  of  the  gully,  they  must 
surely  see  that  bundle  on  the  ground 
and — who  can  tell  what  might  hap- 
pen? But  they  did  not.  With  many 
a  look  backwards,  they  slowly  rode 
away,  and  with  them  the  passive  ele- 
ments of  a  tragedy. 

I  tied  my  ill-gotten,  ill-smelling  pelf 


on  the  handle  bar  of  the  doctor's  wife's 
bicycle,  and  we  hurried  home  like 
spanked  children.  That  night,  after  I 
had  delivered  unto  the  doctor's  wife 
her  own,  and  disinfected  the  gewgaws 
in  carbolic,  I  added  two  more  subjects 
to  my  Never-again  list  —  bicycling  in 
Montana  and  '  dead  hunts.' 


XIII. 
JUST  RATTLESNAKES. 


XIII. 

T  is  a  blessing  that  a 
rattlesnake  has  to  coil 
before  it  can  spring. 
No  one  has  ever  writ- 
ten up  life  from  a  rat- 
tler's point  of  view, 
although  it  has  been  unfeelingly  stated 
that  fear  of  snakes  is  an  inheritance 
from  our  simian  ancestors. 

To  me,  I  acknowledge,  a  rattler  is 
just  a  horrid  snake ;  so,  when  we  were 
told  at  Markham  that  rattlers  were  more 
common  than  the  cattle  which  grazed 


on  every  hill,  I  discovered  that  there 
were  yet  new  imps  to  conquer  in  my 
world  of  fear.  Shakspere  has  said  some 
nice  things  about  fear  —  "  Of  all  the 
wonders,  ...  it  seems  to  me  most 
strange  that  men  should  fear  " — but  he 
never  knew  anything  about  squirming 
rattlesnakes. 

The  Cuttle  Fish  ranch  is  five  miles 
from  Markham.  That  thriving  metrop- 
olis has  ten  houses  and  eleven  saloons, 
in  spite  of  Dakota  being  'prohibition.' 
Markham  is  in  the  heart  of  the  Bad 
Lands,  the  wonderful  freakish  Bad 
Lands,  where  great  herds  of  cattle 
range  over  all  the  possible,  and  some 
of  the  impossible,  places,  while  the  rest 
of  it — black,  green,  and  red  peaks,  hills 
of  powdered  coal,  wicked  land  cuts 
that  no  plumb  can  fathom,  treacherous 
clay  crust  over  boiling  lava,  arid  hor- 


rid  miles  of  impish  whimsical  Nature 
—  is  Bad  indeed. 

Nimrod  and  I  had  been  lured  to  the 
Cuttle  Fish  ranch  to  go  on  a  wolf 
hunt.  The  house  was  a  large  two  storey 
affair  of  logs,  with  a  long  tail  of  one 
storey  log  outbuildings  like  a  train  of 
box  cars.  We  sat  down  to  dinner  the 
first  night  with  twenty  others,  a  queer 
lot  truly  to  find  in  that  wild  uncivil- 
ised place.  There  was  an  ex-mayor 
and  his  wife  from  a  large  Eastern  city; 
a  United  States  Senator  —  the  toughest 
of  the  party  —  who  appeared  at  table 
in  his  undershirt;  four  cowboys,  who 
were  better  mannered  than  the  two 
New  York  millionaires'  sons  who  had 
been  sent  there  to  spend  their  college 
vacation  and  get  toughened  (the  pro- 
cess was  obviously  succeeding);  they 
made  Nimrod  apologise  for  keeping 


his  coat  on  during  dinner) ;  the  three 
brothers  who  owned  the  ranch,  and 
the  wife  of  one  of  them ;  several  chil- 
dren ;  a  prim  and  proper  spinster  from 
Washington — how  she  got  there,  who 
can  tell? — and  Miss  Belle  Hadley,  the 
servant  girl. 

In  studying  the  case  of  Belle  I  at 
last  appreciated  the  age-old  teaching 
that  the  greatest  dignity  belongs  to  the 
one  who  serves.  Else  why  did  the  ex- 
mayor's  wife  bake  doughnuts,  and  the 
rotund  Senator  toil  at  the  ice  cream 
freezer  with  the  thermometer  at  112 
degrees,  and  the  millionaires'  sons  call 
Belle  "  Miss  Hadley,"  and  I  make 
bows  for  her  organdie  dress,  while  she 
curled  her  hair  for  a  dance  to  be 
held  that  evening  ten  miles  away, 
and  to  which  she  went  complacently 
with  her  pick  of  the  cowboys  and  her 


employers'  two  best  horses,  while  they 
stayed  at  home  and  did  her  work  !  Else 
why  did  this  one  fetch  wood  for  her, 
that  one  peel  the  potatoes,  another  wash 
the  dishes  *?  And  when  she  and  the 
rest  of  us  were  seated  at  meals,  and 
something  was  needed  from  the  kitchen, 
why  did  the  unlucky  one  nearest  the 
door  jump  up  and  forage  *?  Belle  was 
never  nearest  the  door.  She  sat  at  the 
middle  of  the  long  table,  so  that  she 
could  be  handy  to  everything  that  was 
'circulating.'  But  I  refer  this  case  to 
the  author  of  those  delightful  papers  on 
the  "  Unquiet  Sex,"  and  hark  back  to 
my  story. 

That  night  the  moon  was  full,  and 
the  coyotes  made  savage  music  around 
the  lonely  ranch  house.  First  from  the 
hill  across  the  creek  came  a  snappy 
~jc0w,  yac-yac,  and  then  a  long 


drawn  out  ooo-oo  ;  then  another  voice,  a 
soprano,  joined  in,  followed  by  a  bari- 
tone, and  then  the  star  voice  of  them 
all  —  loud,  clear,  vicious,  mournful.  For 
an  instant  I  saw  him  silhouetted  against 
the  rising  moon  on  the  hill  ridge,  head 
thrown  back  and  muzzle  raised,  as  he 
gave  to  the  peaceful  night  his  long, 
howling  bark,  his  "  talk  at  moon "  as 
the  Indians  put  it.  The  ranchman  re- 
marked that  there  were  "two  or  three 
out  there,"  but  I  knew  better.  There 
were  dozens,  perhaps  hundreds,  of 
them  ;  I  am  not  deaf. 

The  next  morning  we  were  up  with 
the  dawn  and  started  by  eight  to  run 
down  Mountain  Billy,  the  grey  wolf 
who  lived  on  the  ranchmen  of  the  Bad 
Lands.  Our  outfit  was  as  symmetrical 
as  a  pine  cone  —  dogs,  horses,  mess 
wagon,  food,  guns,  and  men.  All  we 


THE  COYOTES    MADE   SAVAGE  MUSIC. 


needed  was  the  grey  wolf.  I  was  the 
only  woman  in  the  party,  and,  like 
"Weary  Waddles,"  tagged  behind. 

It  was  the  middle  of  September,  and 
the  weather  should  have  known  better. 
But  it  was  the  Bad  Lands,  and  there 
was  a  hot  spell  on.  By  three  o'clock 
the  thermometer  showed  116^  in  the 
shade,  and  I  believed  it.  The  heat 
and  glare  simmered  around  us  like  fire. 
The  dogs'  tongues  nearly  trailed  in  the 
baked  dust,  the  horses'  heads  hung  low, 
an  iron  band  seemed  ever  tightening 
around  my  head,  as  the  sun  beat  down 
upon  all  alike  with  pitiless  force. 

When  we  came  to  the  Little  Missoula, 
even  its  brackish  muddy  water  was 
welcome,  and  I  shut  my  eyes  to  the 
dirt  in  the  uninviting  brown  fluid,  and 
my  mind  to  the  knowledge  of  the  hor- 
rid things  it  would  do  to  me,  and  drank. 


Tepid,  gritty,  foul — was  it  water  I 
had  swallowed  ?  The  horse  assigned  to 
me,  a  small,  white,  benevolent  animal 
named  '  Whiskers,'  waded  in  knee 
deep  and  did  the  same.  Whiskers  was 
a  '  lady's  horse,'  which,  being  inter- 
preted, meant  aged  eighteen  or  twenty, 
with  all  spirit  knocked  out  by  hard 
work ;  a  broken  down  cow  pony,  in 
fact,  or,  in  local  parlance,  a  'skate,'  a 
'goat.'  He  had  lagged  considerably 
behind  the  rest  of  the  party. 

However,  Whiskers  did  not  matter; 
nothing  mattered  but  the  waves  on 
waves  of  heat  that  quivered  before  my 
eyes.  I  shut  them  and  began  repeat- 
ing cooling  rhymes,  such  as  'twin 
peaks  snow  clad,'  'From  Greenland's 
Icy  Mountains,'  and  the  '  Frozen 
North,'  by  way  of  living  up  to  Pro- 
fessor James'  teachings.  Whiskers  was 


ambling  on,  half-stupefied  with  the 
heat,  as  I  was,  when  from  the  road  just 
in  front  came  a  peculiar  sound.  I  did 
not  know  what  it  was,  but  Whiskers 
did,  and  he  immediately  executed  a 
p  demi  volte  (see  Webster)  with  an  en- 
o  ergy  I  had  not  thought  him  capable  of. 
Again  came  the  noise,  yes,  surely, 
just  as  it  had  been  described  —  like 
dried  peas  in  a  pod — and  gliding  across 
the  road  was  a  big  rattlesnake.  I  con- 
fess had  Whiskers  been  so  inclined,  I 
should  have  been  content  to  have 
passed  on  with  haughty  disdain.  But 
Whiskers  performed  a  left  flank  move- 
ment so  nearly  unseating  me  that  I 
deemed  it  expedient  to  drop  to  the 
ground,  and  Whiskers,  without  wait- 
ing for  orders,  retreated  down  the  road 
at  what  he  meant  for  a  gallop.  The 
rattler  stopped  his  pretty  gliding  motion 


away  from  me,  and  seemed  in  doubt. 
Then  he  began  to  take  on  a  few  quirks. 
"  He  is  going  to  coil  and  then  to 
strike,"  said  I,  recalling  a  paragraph 
from  my  school  reader.  It  was  an  un- 
happy moment! 

I  knew  that  tradition  had  fixed  the  § 
proper  weapons  to  be  used  against  rat- 
tlesnakes :  a  stone  (more  if  necessary), 
a  stick  (forked  one  preferred),  and  in 
rare  cases  a  revolver  (when  it  is  that 
kind  of  a  story).  I  had  no  revolver. 
There  was  not  a  stick  in  sight,  and  not 
a  stone  bigger  than  a  hazelnut;  but 
there  was  the  rattler.  I  cast  another 
despairing  glance  around  and  saw,  al- 
most at  my  feet  and  half  hidden  by 
sage  brush,  several  inches  of  rusty  iron 
— blessed  be  the  passing  teamster  who 
had  thrown  it  there.  I  darted  towards 
it  and,  despite  tradition,  turned  on  the 


THE    HORRID    THING   WAS    READY   FOR    ME. 


rattler  armed  with  the  goodly  remains 
of — a  frying  pan. 

The  horrid  thing  was  ready  for  me 
with  darting  tongue  and  flattened  head 
— another  instant  it  would  have  sprung. 
Smash  on  its  head  went  my  val- 
iant frying  pan  and  struck  a  deadly 
blow,  although  the  thing  managed  to 
get  from  under  it.  I  recaptured  my 
weapon  and  again  it  descended  upon 
the  reptile's  head,  settling  it  this  time. 
Feeling  safe,  I  now  took  hold  of  the 
handle  to  finish  it  more  quickly.  Oh, 
that  tail  —  that  awful,  writhing,  lash- 
ing tail !  I  can  stand  Indians,  bears, 
wolves,  anything  but  that  tail,  and 
a  rattler  is  all  tail,  except  its  head.  If 
that  tail  touches  me  I  shall  let  go.  It 
did  touch  me,  I  did  not  let  go.  Pride 
held  me  there,  for  I  heard  the  sound 
of  galloping  hoofs.  Whiskers'  empty 


saddle  had  alarmed  the  rest  of  the 
party. 

My  snake  was  dead  now,  so  I  put 
one  foot  on  him  to  take  his  scalp  —  his 
rattles,  I  mean  —  when  horrid  thrills 
coursed  through  me.  The  uncanny 
thing  began  to  wriggle  and  rattle  with 
old-time  vigour.  I  do  not  like  to  think 
of  that  simian  inheritance.  But,  forti- 
fied by  Nimrod's  assurance  that  it  was 
'  purely  reflex  neuro-ganglionic  move- 
ment,' I  hardened  my  heart  and  cap- 
tured his  '  pod  of  dry  peas.' 

Oh,  about  the  wolf  hunt !  That  was 
all,  just  heat  and  rattlesnakes. 

The  hounds  could  not  run;  one  died 
from  sunstroke  while  chasing  a  jack 
rabbit.  No  one  lifted  a  finger  if  it 
could  be  avoided.  All  the  world  was 
an  oven,  and  after  three  days  we  gave 
up  the  chase,  and  leaving  Mountain 


Billy  panting  triumphantly  somewhere 
his    lair,  trailed  back  to  the  ranch 


m 


house  with  drooping  heads  and  fifteen 
rattle-snakes'  tails.  Oh,  no,  the  hunt 
was  not  a  failure — for  Mountain  Billy. 


o 

X. 

N 


/T 


XIV. 
AS  COWGIRL. 


XIV. 

ILL  the  time  of  the 
"WB"  round-up  all 
cows  looked  alike  to 
me.  We  were  still  at 
the  Cuttle  Fish  ranch, 
which  was  in  a  state  01 
great  activity  because  of  the  fall  round- 
up. Belle,  the  servant  girl,  had  received 
less  attention  of  late  and  had  been 
worked  harder,  a  combination  of  disa- 
greeables which  caused  her  to  threaten 
imminent  departure.  The  cowboys,  who 
had  been  away  for  several  days  gather- 
ing in  the  stragglers  that  had  wandered 


MH 
El 

VsB 


into  the  wild  recesses  of  those  uncanny 
Bad  Land  hills,  assembled  in  full  force 
for  the  evening  meal,  and  announced, 
between  mouthfuls,  that  the  morrow 
was  to  be  branding  day  for  the  several 
outfits,  about  two  thousand  head  of 
cattle  in  all,  the  '  WB '  included,  which 
were  rounded  up  on  the  Big  Flat  two 
miles  distant  from  the  ranch. 

This  was  the  chance  for  me  to  be  re- 
lieved of  my  crass  ignorance  concern- 
ing round-ups,  really  to  have  a  definite 
conception  of  the  term  instead  of  the 
sea  of  vagueness  and  conjecture  into 
which  I  was  plunged  by  the  usual  de- 
scription— "Oh,  just  a  whole  lot  of  cattle 
driven  to  one  place,  and  those  that  need 
it  are  cut  out  and  frescoed."  How  many 
was  a  whole  lot,  how  were  they  driven, 
where  were  they  driven  from,  what 
were  they  cut  out  with,  how  were 


they  branded,  and  when  did  they  need 
it"?  My  ignorance  was  hopeless  and 
pathetic,  and  those  to  wham  I  applied 
were  all  too  familiar  with  the  process 
to  be  able  to  describe  it.  I  might  as 
well  have  asked  for  a  full  description  or 
how  a  man  ate  his  dinner. 

"  Will  you  take  me  to  the  round- 
up to-morrow*?"  I  asked  of  the  'WB' 
boss. 

"  Well,  I  could  have  a  team  hitched 
up,  and  Bob  could  drive  you  to  the 
Black  Nob  Hill,  where  you  can  get  a 
good  view,"  was  the  tolerant  reply. 

Bob  had  wrenched  his  foot  the  day 
before,  when  roping  a  steer,  and  was 
therefore  incapacitated  for  anything  but 
4  woman's  work  ' — '  a  soft  job.' 

"  Oh,  but  I  do  not  want  to  be  so  far 
away  and  look  on ;  I  want  to  be  in  it." 

He  looked  at  me  out  of  the  angle  of 


his  eye  to  make  sure  that  I  was  in 
earnest.  "'Tain't  safe,"  he  said. 

"  Then  you  mean  to  say  that  every 
cowboy  risks  his  life  in  a  round-up?" 

"  Oh,  well,  they're  men  and  take 
their  chances.  Besides,  it's  their  busi- 
ness." 

I  never  yet  have  been  able  to  have 
a  direct  question  answered  by  a  true 
mountaineer  or  plainsman  by  a  simple 
yes  or  no.  Is  there  something  in  the 
bigness  of  their  surroundings  that 
causes  the  mind  to  spread  over  an  idea 
and  lose  directness  like  a  meadow 
brook  *? 

However,  by  various  wiles  known  to 
my  kind,  the  next  morning  at  daybreak 
I  was  mounted  upon  the  surest-footed 
animal  in  the  '  bunch.' 

"  She's  a  trained  cow  pony  and 
won't  lose  her  head,"  the  boss  re- 
marked. 


Thus  equipped,  I  was  allowed  to 
accompany  the  cowboys  to  their  work, 
with  the  understanding  that  I  was  to 
keep  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  herd. 
Van  Anden,  a  famous  'cutter  out,' 
whatever  that  meant,  was  deputed 
to  have  an  especially  watchful  eye 
upon  me.  Van  Anden  was  a  sur- 
prisingly graceful  fellow,  who  got  his 
six  foot  of  stature  in  more  places  dur- 
ing the  day  than  any  of  the  smaller 
men.  He  was  evidently  a  cowboy  be- 
cause he  wanted  to  be  one.  There 
were  many  traces  of  a  college  educa- 
tion and  a  thorough  drilling  in  good 
manners  in  an  Eastern  home,  which 
report  said  could  still  be  his  if  he  so 
wished;  and  report  also  stated  that  he 
remained  a  bachelor  in  spite  of  being 
the  most  popular  man  in  the  country, 
because  of  a  certain  faithless  siren  who 
with  gay  unconcern  casts  languishing 


glances  and  spends  papa's  dollars  at 
Newport. 

But  this  was  no  Beau  Brummel  day. 
There  was  work  to  do,  and  hard  work, 
as  I  soon  discovered.  We  had  ridden 
perhaps  a  mile ;  my  teeth  were  still 
chattering  in  the  early  morning  cold 
(breaking  ice  on  one's  bath  water  and 
blowing  on  one's  fingers  to  enable  one 
to  lace  heavy  boots  may  suit  a  cow- 
boy :  I  do  not  pretend  to  like  it),  when 
we  began  to  notice  a  loud  bellowing  in 
the  distance.  Instantly  my  compan- 
ions spurred  their  horses  and  we  went 
speeding  over  the  Little  Missoula  bot- 
tom lands,  around  scrub  willows  and 
under  low  hanging  branches  of  oak, 
one  of  which  captured  my  hat,  after 
breaking  both  of  the  hat  pins,  and 
nearly  swept  me  from  the  saddle. 

On  I   rushed  with  the  rest,  hatless, 


and  as  in  a  cloud  of  fury.  Van  Anden 
took  a  turn  around  that  tree  and  was  at 
my  side  again  with  the  hat  before  I 
realised  what  he  was  doing.  I  jerked 
out  a  "  thank  you  "  between  lopes,  and 
of  course  forbore  to  remark  that  a 
hat  without  pins  was  hollow  mockery. 
I  dodged  the  next  low  branch  so  suc- 
cessfully that  the  pommel  in  some  mi- 
raculous way  jumped  up  and  smashed 
the  crystal  in  my  watch,  the  same  being 
carried  in  that  mysterious  place,  the 
shirt  waist  front,  where  most  women 
carry  their  watches,  pocket  books,  and 
love  letters. 

When  we  got  into  the  open  the  ter- 
rible bellowing — acombination  of  shriek, 
groan,  and  roar  in  varying  pitch — grew 
louder,  and  I  could  just  discern  a  wav- 
ing ghostly  mass  in  the  gray  morning 
mist.  I  wondered  if  this  were  the  herd, 


but  found  it  was  only  the  cloud  of  dust 
in  which  it  was  enveloped. 

Four  of  the  cowboys  had  already 
disappeared  in  different  directions.  I 
heard  the  'WB'  boss  say,  "Billy,  to 
the  left  flank.  Van,  them  blamed  heif- 
ers," as  he  flew  past  them. 

Van  dashed  forward,  I  gave  my 
black  mare  a  cut  with  the  quirt  and 
followed.  Van's  face,  as  he  turned 
around  to  remonstrate,  was  a  study  of 
surprise,  distress,  and  disgust,  for  I  was 
undoubtedly  breaking  rules. 

"Don't  bother  about  me,"  I  called 
as  airily  as  possible,  as  I  shot  past  him. 
He  had  checked  his  horse's  speed,  but 
now  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to 
follow  me  as  fast  as  he  could.  I  shall 
have  to  record  that  he  swore,  as  he 
turned  sharply  to  the  right  into  a  group 
of  cattle.  Poor  man,  it  was  dreadful 


to  saddle  him  with  a  woman  at  such  a 
juncture,  but  I  was  not  a  woman  just 
then.      I   was    a    green    cowboy   and 
|\     frightened  to  death,  as  the  cattle  closed 
around  me,  a  heavy  mass  of  ponderous 
p       forms,  here  wedged  in  tightly  and  bel- 
o      lowing,  some  with  the  pain   of  being 
crushed,  some  for  their   calves.     I   ex- 
pected   every  instant    to    be    trampled 
under  foot. 

"  Stick  to  your  horse,  whatever  you 
do,  and  work  to  the  left,"  I  heard  Van 
shouting  to  me  over  the  backs  of  a 
dozen  cows.  The  dust,  the  noise,  and 
the  smell  of  those  struggling  creatures 
appalled  and  sickened  me.  How  was 
I  ever  going  to  work  to  the  left  in  that 
jam  *?  I  could  see  nothing  but  backs 
and  heads  and  horns.  I  allowed  mysell 
one  terrified  groan  which  was  fortu- 
nately lost  in  the  general  uproar.  But 


the  pony  had  been  in  such  a  situation 
before,  if  I  had  not,  and  she  taught  me 
what  to  do.  She  gave  a  sudden  spring 
forward  when  a  space  just  big  enough 
for  her  appeared,  then  wove  her  way 
a  few  paces  forward  between  two  ani- 
mals who  had  room  enough  on  the 
other  side  of  them  to  give  way  a  little, 
while  the  space  I  had  just  left  had 
closed  up,  a  tight  mass  of  groaning 
creatures. 

Thus  we  worked  our  way  to  the  left 
whenever  there  was  a  chance,  and  at 
last  through  the  dust  I  could  see  the 
heavenly  open  space  beyond.  Forget- 
ting my  tactics,  I  made  straight  for  it, 
and  was  caught  in  one  of  those  terrible 
waves  of  tightly  pressed  creatures 
which  is  caused  by  those  on  the  out- 
side pressing  towards  the  centre,  and 
the  centre  giving  until  there  is  no  more 


space,  when  comes  the  crush.  Fortu- 
nately I  was  on  the  outskirts  of  this 
crush,  and  by  holding  my  feet  up  high 
we  managed  to  squeeze  through  that 
dreadful,  dust  covered,  stamping,  snort- 
ing bedlam  into  the  glorious  free  air 
and  sunshine.  Already  I  had  a  much 
better  conception  of  what  a  '  whole  lot ' 
of  cattle  meant. 

From  the  vantage  ground  of  a  little 
hill  I  could  see  the  whole  herd,  and 
realised  that  I  had  been  in  only  a  small 
bunch  of  it,  composed  of  cows  and 
calves.  Had  I  gone  to  the  right  I 
should  soon  have  gotten  into  a  raging 
mass  of  some  thousand  head  of  bulls. 
They  were  pawing  and  tearing  up  the 
ground  that  but  a  little  before  had  been 
covered  with  grass  and  late  flowers,  and 
occasionally  goring  one  another.  The 
cowboys  were  riding  on  the  outskirts 


of  this  life-destroying  horde,  forcing  the 
stragglers  back  into  line,  and  by  many 
a  sudden  dash  forward,  then  to  the  right, 
sharp  wheel  about,  and  more  spurts  this 
way  and  that,  were  slowly  driving  it  to- 
ward another  mass  of  cattle,  a  half  mile 
further  on,  which  could  be  distinguished 
only  by  the  clouds  of  dust  which  en- 
veloped it. 

Van  Anden,  meanwhile,  in  the  small 
bunch  with  which  I  had  had  such  an 
intimate  acquaintance,  was  acting  as 
though  he  had  lost  his  wits,  or  so  it 
seemed  to  me  until  I  began  to  under- 
stand what  he  was  doing.  He  would 
dart  into  the  bunch,  scattering  cattle 
right  and  left,  and  would  weave  in  and 
out,  out  and  in,  waving  his  arms, 
shouting,  throwing  his  rope,  occasion- 
ally hitting  an  animal  across  the  nose 
or  the  flank,  sometimes  twisting  their 


tails,  dodging  blows  and  kicks,  and  fi- 
nally emerge  driving  before  him  a  cow 
followed  by  her  calf.  These  another 
cowboy  would  take  charge  of  and  drive 
to  a  small  bunch  of  cows  and  calves 
which  I  now  noticed  for  the  first  time, 
separating  them  from  their  relations, 
who  remonstrated  in  loud  bellowings, 
stampings  and  freakish,  brief,  ill  judged 
attacks.  And  then  I  understood  what 
it  meant  to  '  cut  out '  cattle  from  '  a 
whole  lot.' 

When  the  calves  and  cows  were 
finally  separated,  it  was  necessary  to 
drive  them  also  to  the  Big  Flat  for  the 
afternoon's  work  of  branding  those 
that  '  needed  it.'  Van  guarded  the 
rear  of  the  bunch  and  of  course  I  rode 
with  him,  that  is  as  near  as  I  could, 
for  he  was  as  restless  as  a  blue  bottle  fly 
in  a  glass  jar,  dashing  hither  and  thither, 


•to 


keeping  those  crazy  creatures  together, 
and  ever  pushing  them  forward.  The 
dust  and  heat  and  noise  and  smell  and 
continual  action  made  my  head  ache. 
So  this  was  cowboy  life,  Van's  choice  ! 
I  thought  of  a  certain  far  away,  well 
ordered  home,  with  perhaps  a  sweet 
voiced  mother  and  well  groomed  sis- 
ter, and  wondered,  even  while  I  knew 
the  answer.  On  the  one  hand,  peace, 
comfort,  affection,  and  the  eternal 
sameness;  on  the  other,  effort,  hard- 
ship, fighting  sometimes,  but  ever  with 
the  new  day  a  whole  world  of  unlived 
possibilities,  change,  action,  and  bond- 
age to  no  one. 

A  particularly  fractious  heifer  at 
this  point  suddenly  changed  my  con- 
templation of  Van  Anden's  charac- 
ter into  a  lively  share  of  Van  Anden's 
job.  The  creature  was  making  good 


;-•«! 


I    STARTED    ON   A   GALLOP,  SWINGING    ONE   ARM. 


w  time  straight  towards  me,  and  as  I  had 
dropped  considerably  behind  the  herd 
in  order  to  breathe  some  fresh  air  and 
to  be  free  from  the  dust,  I  knew  that  it- 
meant  a  long  hard  chase  for  Van  and 
his  tired  horse  if  I  did  not  head  off  that 
heifer ;  I  felt  I  owed  him  that  much.  I 
had  seen  the  cowboys  do  that  very 
thing  a  hundred  times  that  morning, 
but  you  cannot  stand  on  your  toe  by 
watching  a  ballet  dancer  do  it.  How- 
ever, I  started  on  a  gallop,  slanting  diag- 
onally towards  the  creature,  swinging 
one  arm  frantically  (I  really  could  not 
let  go  with  both)  and  yelling  "  Hi,  hi ! " 
I  wondered  what  would  happen  next, 
for  to  be  honest,  I  was  exquisitely 
scared.  Why  scared  ?  It  is  not  for  me 
to  explain  a  woman's  dread  of  the  un- 
known and  untried. 

I  heard  Van  shouting,  but  could  not 


understand.  To  know  you  are  right 
and  then  go  ahead  is  a  pretty  plan,  but 
how  to  know*?  The  animal  did  not 
stop  or  swerve  from  its  course.  We 
would  surely  collide.  What  was  I  to 
do  ?  Oh,  for  a  precedent !  Evidently 
the  mare  was  aware  of  one,  for  she 
wheeled  to  the  right  just  in  time  to 
miss  the  oncoming  heifer,  and  we 
raced  alongside  for  a  few  seconds.  I 
had  so  nearly  parted  company  with  my 
mount  in  the  last  manoeuvre  (centaurs 
would  have  an  enormous  advantage 
as  cowboys)  that  I  had  lost  all  desire 
to  help  Van  and  only  wanted  to  get 
away  from  that  heifer,  to  make  an  hon- 
ourable dismount,  and  go  somewhere 
by  myself  where  a  little  brook  babbled 
nothings,  and  the  forget-me-nots  pla- 
cidly slept.  Rough  riding  and  adven- 
tures of  the  Calamity  Jane  order  tempt- 
ed me  no  more. 


Whether  now  the  heifer  did  the 
proper  thing  or  not,  I  cannot  say, 
but  she  circled  around  with  me  on  the 
outer  side  (I  suspect  my  cow  pony 
knew  how  it  was  done)  and  was  half 
way  back  to  the  herd  when  Van  took 
it  in  charge.  His  face  bore  a  broad 
grin  for  the  first  time  that  day,  from 
what  emotions  caused  I  have  never 
been  able  to  determine.  I,  of  course, 
said  nothing. 

Then,  oh,  the  joy  of  that  round  up 
dinner  !  The  '  WB'  outfit  had  a  meal 
tent,  a  mess  wagon,  and  a  cook  for  the 
men,  and  a  rope  corral,  food  and  water 
for  the  horses.  Everybody  was  happy 
for  the  noon  hour,  save  the  unlucky 
ones  whose  turn  it  was  to  guard  the 
herd.  Bob  had  driven  the  ex-mayor's 
wife,  the  sad  eyed  spinster,  and  Nim- 
rod  over  to  join  us  at  dinner.  The 
boss  greeted  Nimrod  with  the  assur- 


ance  that  I  was  'all  right'  and  could 
apply  any  time  for  a  job.  I  may  as 
well  say  that  Nimrod  had  allowed  me  N 
to  go  without  him  in  the  morning,  be-  '  J 
cause  the  cattle  business  was  no  novelty 
to  him ;  because  daybreak  rising  did  not 
appeal  to  him  as  a  pastime ;  and  because,  8 
at  the  time  I  broached  the  subject,  being 
engaged  in  writing  a  story,  he  had  re- 
moved but  one-eighth  of  his  mind  for 
the  consideration  of  mundane  affairs, 
and  that,  as  any  one  knows,  is  insuffic- 
ient to  judge  fairly  whether  the  winged 
thing  I  was  reaching  out  for  was  a  fly 
or  a  bumble  bee.  In  the  morning,  the 
story  being  finished  and  the  other  seven- 
eights  of  brain  at  liberty  to  dwell  upon 
the  same  question,  he  decided  to  follow 
me,  with  the  result  that  in  the  afternoon 
I  rode  in  the  wagon. 

The  cowboy  meal,  which   I  believe 


was  not  elaborated  for  us,  was  a 
healthy  solid  affair  of  meat,  vege- 
tables, hot  biscuit,  coffee,  and  prunes, 
appetisingly  cooked  and  unstintingly 
served,  for  the  Bad  Land  appetite  is 
like  unto  that  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
lusty  and  big.  The  saddling  of  fresh 
horses  made  a  lively  scene  for  a  few 
moments  in  the  corral;  then  the  men 
rode  off  for  the  afternoon's  business  of 
branding. 

The  ranch  party  packed  itself  into 
a  three-seated  buckboard  and  we  fol- 
lowed behind.  We  went  at  a  wide 
safe  distance  from  the  half-crazed 
herds,  which  had  been  driven  this  way 
and  that  until  they  knew  not  what  they 
wanted,  nor  what  was  wanted  of  them, 
to  where  a  huge  fire  was  blazing  and 
rapidly  turning  cold  black  iron  to  red 
hot.  These  irons  were  fashioned  in 


curious  shapes,  from  six  to  ten  inches 
long  and  fastened  to  a  four  foot  iron 
handle.  The  smell  of  burning  flesh 
was  in  the  air,  and  horrid  shrieks.  Be- 
yond was  the  ceaseless  bellowing  and 
stamping  and  weaving  of  the  herds. 

From  the  time  I  got  into  the  wagon 
and  became  a  mere  onlooker,  my  point 
of  view  changed.  The  exhilaration  of 
action  had  disappeared.  I  was  a  cowboy 
no  longer.  The  cattle  in  the  morning 
had  been  stupid  foolish  creatures,  dan- 
gerous in  their  blind  strength,  which 
must  be  made  to  do  what  one  willed. 
Now  they  were  poor,  dumb,  persecuted 
beasts  which  must  be  tormented,  even 
tortured  (for  who  shall  say  that  red  hot 
iron  on  tender  flesh  is  not  torture  *?)  and 
eventually  butchered  for  the  swelling 
of  man's  purse.  I  saw  the  riders  dash 
towards  an  animal  who  'needed  brand- 


ing ' — which  I  discovered  to  mean  one 
that  had  hitherto  escaped  the  iron,  or 
that  had  changed  owners — throw  a  rope 
over  its  head  or  horns,  fasten  the  other 
end  to  the  pommel,  and  drag  it  to  the 
fire,  where  it  was  thrown  and  tied. 
Then  it  was  seized  by  several  men  who 
sat  on  its  head  and  legs  to  hold  it  com- 
paratively still  while  another  took  the 
hot  brand  from  the  fire  and  pressed  it 
against  the  quivering  side  of  the  animal. 
It  was  then  released  and,  bawling  with 
pain  and  fright,  allowed  to  return  to  its 
mother,  who  had  been  kept  off  by  an- 
other rider.  A  sound  at  my  side  in- 
formed me  that  the  little  old  maid  was 
weeping  copiously. 

It  is  a  pity  I  could  not  have  had  the 
cowboy's  point  of  view,  for  mine  was 
most  unpleasant,  but  my  little  glimpse 
of  the  other  side  was  gone,  and  gladly 


I  drove  away  from  the  mighty  smells 
and  sounds  of  that  unfortunate  mass  of 
seething  life,  subjected  to  the  will  of  a 
dozen  men,  Van  Anden  the  worst  of 
the  lot.  And  as  we  went  silently 
through  the  sweet  cool  air,  crisp  as 
an  October  leaf,  where  a  bluebird 
was  twittering  a  wing-free  song  on 
the  poplar  yonder,  where  silver-turned 
willows  were  gently  swaying,  and  a 
jolly  chipmunk  was  rippling  from  log 
to  stone,  I  wondered  whether  the  New- 
port girl  had  really  done  so  wrong  after 
all. 


XV. 

THE  SWEET  PEA  LADY. 

SOME   ONE   ELSE'S 
MOUNTAIN  SHEEP. 


3Q2 


XV. 

T  was  at  Winnipeg 
(you  do  not  want  to 
know  how  we  got 
there)  that  I  first 
walked  into  the  aura 
of  the  Sweet  Pea  Lady, 
and  by  so  doing  prepared  the  way  for 
the  shatterment  of  another  illusion  — 
namely,  that  *  little  deeds  of  kindness ' 
always  result  in  mutual  pleasure. 

Flowers  and  fruit  in  Manitoba  are 
treasured  as  sunshine  in  London,  for 
you  must  remember  that  Manitoba  is 
a  very  new  country,  that  it  is  only  a 


paltry  few  thousands  of  years  since  its 
thousands  of  miles  were  scraped  flat  as 
a  floor.  Everything  even  yet  looks  so 
immodest  on  those  vast  stretches.  The 
clumps  of  trees  stand  out  in  such  a 
bold  brazen  fashion.  The  houses  ap- 
pear as  though  stuck  on  to  the  land- 
scape. Even  an  honest  brown  cow  can 
not  manage  to  melt  herself  into  the 
endless  stretch  of  prairies.  In  fact,  the 
little  scenic  accidents  of  trees  and  hol- 
lows, which  mean  fruit  and  flowers,  are 
mainly  due  to  man. 

So,  when  our  friends  who  saw  us  off 
on  the  west-bound  Canadian  Pacific  left 
in  our  sleeper  two  huge  bouquets  of 
sweet  peas  and  ten  pounds  of  black- 
berries, we  knew  that  the  finest  garden 
in  Winnipeg  had  been  rifled  to  do  us 
pleasure.  Now,  I  dearly  love  flowers 
and  fruit,  as  I  did  the  giver,  but  ten 


pounds  of  great,  fat  blackberries  anil 
an  armful  of  sweet  peas  in  a  cramped 
stuffy  Pullman  caused  my  heart  to  re- 
sound in  the  minor  chords.  We  rallied 
again  and  again  to  demolish  the  fruit 
p  as  we  voyaged,  and  sat  with  one  foot 
o  on  top  of  the  other  to  avoid  crushing 
the  lovely  pea  blossoms  as  we  fidgeted 
about,  but  the  results  of  our  efforts, 
messy  fruit  in  hopeless  abundance  and 
withering  leaves  in  dreary  profusion, 
were  discouraging. 

When  the  noon  hour  came,  Nimrod 
carried  the  fruit  basket  into  the  diner 
and  set  it  down  on  the  table.  The 
waiter  eyed  us  askance.  "  It's  a  dol- 
lar each  for  dinner,  sah."  It  was  clear 
we  were  emigrants.  We  paid  the  wait- 
er's demand  and  then  from  soup  to 
coffee  ate  blackberries  —  blackberries 
until  we  were  black  in  the  mouth  and 


pale  in  the  face.  Then  we  picked  up 
our  basket,  upon  the  contents  of  which 
our  labours  had  apparently  made  no  im- 
pression, and,  hastily  pushing  a  plate 
over  the  rich  red  stain  it  had  left  on 
the  table  cloth,  departed  with  our  fruit 
and  a  grieved  feeling  in  the  region  of 
our  hearts.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to 
remark  that  I  have  never  eaten  a 
blackberry  since.  To  get  to  our  car 
it  was  necessary  to  pass  through  an- 
other sleeper,  where  I  noticed  a  made 
up  berth  in  which  was  reclining  a 
young  woman,  and  hovering  over  her 
solicitously  a  man,  evidently  the  hus- 
band. 

Hope  and  joy  awoke  within  me  — 
perhaps  she  would  like  some  black- 
berries !  No,  she  would  not  venture  to 
eat  fruit,  and  with  many  thanks,  oh, 
many,  many  thanks,  she  declined  it. 


But  the  blessedness  of  giving  I  felt 
must  be  mine,  so  I  bribed  the  porter 
to  take  as  many  sweet  peas  as  he  could 
carry  and  present  them  to  the  sick  lady 
in  the  next  car,  and  on  no  account  to 
tell  where  he  got  them.  I  did  not  want 
the  thanks,  neither  did  I  want  the  sweet 
peas,  but  I  was  illogical  enough  to 
hope  that  the  Recording  Angel  would 
be  busy  and  accept  the  act  at  its  face 
value  as  a  "deed  of  kindness." 

It  must  have  been  a  slack  day  with 
the  angel,  for  this  is  a  brief  but  accu- 
rate account  of  what  followed,  and  I 
am  willing  to  leave  it  to  any  human, 
whether  my  punishment  was  not  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  offense  committed: 

One  hour  later.  Train  stops  for  ten 
minutes.  I  got  out  for  fresh  air  and 
promenade  on  platform.  Behold,  the 
first  object  that  meets  my  gaze  is  the 


sick  lady,  miraculously  recovered.  She 
swooped  down  upon  me  with  the  dead- 
ly light  of  determination  in  her  eyes.  IM 
I  was  discovered.  There  was  no  es-  '| 
cape.  I  was  going  to  be  thanked — and 
I  was  thanked.  Up  and  down,  back- 
wards and  forwards,  inside  and  out, 
and  all  hands  around.  And  when  she 
paused  breathless  her  husband  took  up 
the  theme.  It  seems  she  was  a  semi  in- 
valid, and  the  sweet  peas  were  quite  the 
most  heavenly  thing  that  could  have 
happened  to  her.  Nimrod  joined  me 
at  this  moment  and  he  was  thanked 
separately  and  dually,  for  being  the 
husband  of  his  wife,  I  suppose.  At  last 
we  were  able  to  retire  with  profuse 
bows,  tired  but  exceedingly  thankful 
that  the  incident,  though  trying,  was 
ended. 

rfbree  minutes  later.     Have  been  driv- 
en   indoors   by  the   sweet  pea  woman, 


as  each  turn  of  the  walk  brought  us 
face  to  face,  when  it  immediately  be- 
came necessary  to  nod  and  smile,  and 
for  our  husbands  to  lift  hats  and  smile, 
until  we  looked  like  loose-necked 
manikins.  At  least,  the  sleeper  is 
tranquil,  if  stuffy. 

Supper  time.  Have  been  thanked 
again  by  the  Sweet  Pea  Lady,  who  sat 
at  our  table.  She  had  sweet  peas  in 
her  hair,  and  at  her  belt.  The  husband 
had  a  boutonniere  of  them. 

Next  morning,  Carberry.  Bade  an 
elaborate  farewell  to  the  Sweet  Pea 
Lady.  She  is  going  straight  to  the 
coast  where  they  catch  steamer  for 
Japan.  Praise  be  to  Allah  !  I  shall  see 
her  no  more.  The  heavy  polite  is 
wearing. 

Next  day,  Banff  Hot  Springs.  First 
person  on  the  hotel  steps  I  see  is  the 
S.  P.  Lady.  She  rushed  up  and  as- 


sured  me  that  the  S.  P.'s  were  still 
fresh,  and  that  she  and  her  husband 
had  unexpectedly  stopped  over  for  a 
day. 

Next  day.  Spent  the  day  avoiding 
S.  P.  L.  Left  for  Glacier  House  in  the 
evening.  At  least,  I  shall  not  see  S. 
P.  L.  there,  as  they  have  to  go  right 
through  to  catch  steamer. 

'Tkco  days  later,  Glacier  House.  Had 
horrid  shock.  Found  apparition  of  S. 
P.  Lady  sitting  beside  me  at  break- 
fast table.  She  began  to  speak,  then  I 
knew  it  was  the  real  thing.  She  as- 
sured me  that  many  of  the  S.  P.'s  were 
still  fresh,  as  she  had  clipped  their 
stems  night  and  morning.  I  again  said 
good  by  to  her,  and  to  those  ghastly 
flowers.  She  just  has  time  to  catch  her 
steamer. 

'Three  days  later:  Vancouver.  Ran 
:ross  the  S.  P.  Lady  in  hotel  corridor. 


She  saw  me  first.     There  was  another 

weary  interchange  of  the  heavy  polite. 

Her    steamer    had   been  delayed  from 
jn     sailing  for  two  days — in  order  that  we 

might  meet  again,  I  have  no  doubt. 

Next  morning.     She's  gone.     Ring  the 
o      bells,  boom    the    cannon !     I    saw   the 

T 

Japan  steamer  bear  the  Sweet  Pea 
Lady  rapidly  into  deep  water.  At  last 
easeful  peace  may  again  dream  on  my 
shoulder.  When  I  returned  to  the  hotel 
the  clerk  handed  me  an  envelope  enclos- 
ing a  lady's  visiting  card  (kind  fate,  she 
lives  in  Japan)  on  which  was  written 
"  In  grateful  appreciation  of  your  kind- 
ness," and  with  the  card  were  two 
sprays  of  Pressed  Sweet  Peas. 

After  this  when  it  comes  to  "  scat- 
tering deeds  of  kindness  on  the  weary 
way,"  I  shall  be  the  woman  who  didn't, 
and  who  shall  say  me  nay  ? 

However,  all    this   flower   and  fruit 


piece  was  but  an  episode;  the  event 
of  that  journey  was  the  intimate  ac- 
quaintance we  made  of  the  Great  Gla- 
cier of  the  Selkirks,  and  the  nice  op- 
portunity I  had  to  lose  my  life.  And 
the  only  reason  this  tale  is  not  more 
tragic  is  because,  given  the  choice,  I 
preferred  to  lose  the  opportunity  rather 
than  the  life. 

I  wonder  if  I  can  give  any  idea  to 
one  who  has  not  seen  it  what  a  snow 
slide  really  is;  how  it  sweeps  away 
every  vestige  of  trees,  grass,  and  roots, 
and  leaves  a  surface  of  shifting,  un- 
stable earth  almost  as  treacherous  as 
quicksand. 

Nimrod  and  I  had  paid  a  superficial 
visit  to  the  Glacier  the  day  before  :  that 
is,  we  had  gone  as  far  as  its  forefoot,  a 
hard  but  thoroughly  safe  climb,  and 
had  explored  with  awe  the  green  glass 


THE    WARM    BEATING    HEART    OF    A    MOUNTAIN    SHEEP. 


3°5j 

r.       .    . 

w  ice  caves  with  which  the  Great  Glacier 
has  seen  fit  to  decorate  its  lower  line, 
wonderful  rooms  of  ice,  emerald  in  the 


E       shadows,     with     glacial     streams     for 

D       floors. 

So  the  next  morning  we  started  out, 

o  intending  a  little  bit  to  further  explore 
the  vast,  cold,  heartless  ice  sheet  (vaster 
than  all  the  Swiss  glaciers  together), 
but  more  to  hunt  for  the  warm  beat- 
ing heart  of  a  mountain  sheep,  whose 
home  is  here.  We  had  been  travel- 
ling for  miles  in  the  wildest  kind  of 
earth  upheavals,  for  the  Selkirks  are 
still  hard  and  fast  in  the  grip  of  the  ice 
king;  huge  boulders,  uprooted  trees, 
mighty  mountains,  released  but  recent- 
ly from  the  glacial  wet  blanket,  when 
Nimrod  discovered  the  stale  track  of  a 
mountain  sheep.  We  followed  it  ea- 
gerly till  it  brought  us  across  the  path 


of  a  snow  slide.  At  that  point  it  was 
about  five  hundred  feet  across,  at  an 
angle  of  forty-five  degrees ;  below  us  a 
thousand  feet  was  a  vicious  looking 
glacial  torrent;  above,  an  equal  dis- 
tance, was  the  lower  edge  of  the  gla- 
cier, the  mother  of  all  this  devastation. 
The  fearless-footed  mountain  sheep 
had  crossed  this  sliding  crumbling 
earth  and  gravel  incline  with  apparent 
ease.  For  us  it  was  go  on  or  go  back. 
There  was  no  middle  course.  The  row 
of  tiny  hoof  marks  running  straight 
across  from  one  safe  bank  to  the  other 
deceived  us.  It  could  not  be  so  very 
difficult.  We  dismounted;  Nimrod 
threw  the  bridle  over  his  horse's  head 
and  started  across,  leading  his  beast. 
The  animal  snorted  as  he  felt  the  foot- 
hold giving  way  beneath  him,  but  Nin> 
rod  pulled  him  along.  It  was  impos- 


I 

I 


sible  to  stand  still.  It  would  have  been 
as  easy  for  quicksilver  to  remain  at  the 
top  of  an  incline.  Amid  rattling  stones 
and  sliding  earth  they  landed  on  the 
firm  bank  beyond,  fully  three  hundred 
feet  below  me. 

It  was  a  shivery  sight,  but  I  started 
expecting  the  horse  would  follow.  He, 
however,  jerked  back  snorting  and 
trembling,  which  unexpected  move  up- 
set my  equilibrium,  uncertain  at  best, 
and  I  fell.  Nothing  but  the  happy 
chance  of  a  tight  grip  on  the  reins  kept 
me  from  sliding  down  that  dreadful 
bank,  over  the  rock  into  the  water,  and 
so  into  eternity  (Please  pardon  the  Sal- 
vation Army  metaphor). 

I  had  barely  time  to  right  myself  and 
get  out  of  the  way  of  my  horse,  which 
now  plunged  forward  upon  the  sliding 
rock  with  me.  The  terrified  animal 


lost  his  head  completely.     I  could  not 
keep  away  from  his  hoofs.     He  would 

i  •       r  T     i 

not  let  me  keep  in  front,  I  dare  not  get  P 
above  for  fear  I  should  slip  under  his  I 
feet,  or  below  him  for  fear  he  should 
slide  upon  me.  I  lost  my  balance 
again  while  dodging  away  from  him  <p 
as  he  plunged  and  balked,  but  man- 
aged to  grab  his  mane  and  we  both 
slid  a  horrible  distance.  I  could  hear 
Nimrod  shouting  on  the  bank,  but  did 
not  seem  to  understand  him.  I  had  the 
stage,  centre  front,  and  it  was  all  I 
could  attend  to. 

We  were  now  opposite  to  Nimrod, 
but  only  half  way  across.  Such  an 
ominous  rolling  and  tumbling  of  stones 
and  tons  of  earth  sliding  down  over 
the  low  precipice  into  the  water!  I 
expected  to  be  with  it  each  instant. 
Nimrod  had  started  out  after  me. 


I    COULD    NOT    KEEP   AWAY   FROM    HIS    HOOFS. 


Then  I  understood  what  he  was  shout- 
ing :  "  Let  go  that  horse."  Why,  of 
course  !  Why  had  I  not  thought  of 
that  ?  I  did  let  go  and,  thus  freed,  man- 
aged to  get  across,  falling,  slipping, 
but  still  making  progress  until  I 
reached  the  safe  ground  one  hundred 
feet  lower  in  a  decidedly  dilapidated 
condition.  My  animal  followed  me  in- 
stinctively for  a  short  distance,  and 
Nimrod  got  him  the  rest  of  the  way — I 
do  not  know  how.  It  did  not  interest 
me  then. 

And  the  saddest  of  all,  the  mountain 
sheep  had  vanished  into  the  unknown, 
taking  his  little  tracks  with  him,  so  we 
had  to  go  back  in  a  roundabout  way, 
without  sheep,  without  joy — and  with- 
out a  tragedy. 


XVI. 

IN    WHICH    THE   TENDER- 
FOOT   LEARNS    A    NEW 
TRICK. 


315 


XVI. 

OR  those  who  have 
driven  four-in-hand, 
this  will  have  no  mes- 
sage. But  as  four-in- 
hand  literature  seems 
to  be  somewhat  lim- 
ited and  my  first  lesson  was  somewhat 
drastic,  I  shall  venture  to  tell  you  how 
it  felt. 

Of  coaching  there  are  two  kinds: 
Eastern  coaching,  with  well-groomed 
full-fed  horses,  who  are  never  worked 
harder  than  is  good  for  them ;  with  sil- 
ver-plated harness,  and  coach  with  the 


latest  springs  and  running  gear,  um- 
brella rack,  horn,  lunch  larder,  and 
what  not;  with  footmen  or  postil- 
ions, according  to  the  degree  of  style, 
to  run  to  the  horses'  heads  at  the  first 
hitch ;  with  the  gentleman  driver  in 
cream  box  coat  and  beribboned  whip; 
with  everything  down  to  the  pole  pin 
correct  and  immaculate. 

Then    there    is    Western    coaching:, 

D' 

which  is  more  properly  termed  staging, 
for  which  is  used  any  vehicle  that  will 
hold  together  and  whose  wheels  will 
turn  round.  This  is  pulled  by  half- 
broken  shaggy  horses  which  would 
kick  any  man  who  ventured  near  them 
with  brush  or  currycomb,  and  which 
are  sometimes  made  to  travel  until  they 
drop  in  the  road.  The  harness  on  such 
coaching  trips  is  an  assortment  of  sin- 
gle, double,  leaders  and  wheelers  sets, 


mended  with  buckskin  or  wire  and 
thrown  on  irrespective  of  fit.  Lucky 
the  cayuse  who  happens  to  be  the 
right  size  for  his  harness. 

And  the  driver!  No  cream  box 
coat  for  him  —  provident  the  one  who 
owns  a  slicker  and  a  coat  of  weather 
green  (the  same  being  the  result  of  sun 
and  rain  on  any  given  color).  And  the 
people  in  the  stage  hoist  no  white  and 
red  silk  parasols.  They  are  there  be- 
cause they  are  "  going  somewhere."  My 
multi-murderous  cook  taught  me  the 
distinction  between  "just  travellin' "  and 
*'  going  somewhere." 

As  for  the  roads  —  oh,  those  Rocky 
Mountain  roads !  They  make  coaching 
quite  a  different  thing  from  that  on  the 
smooth  boulevards  around  New  York. 
I  have  twice  made  seventy-five  miles  in 
twelve  hours,  by  having  four  relays,  but 


I3i8 


the  average  rate  of  travel  is  about 
twenty  miles  in  eight  hours.  And  the  n 
day  when  I  first  took  the  ribbons  in  my  N 
hands  to  guide  four  horses  we  were  J 
from  nine  in  the  morning  till  five  at  ? 
night  going  twelve  miles.  This  was 
the  way  of  it : 

Nimrod  and  I  were  on  a  hunting  trip 
in  the  Canadian  Rockies,  and  as  the 
government  map  said  there  was  a  road, 
though  not  a  good  one,  we  decided  to 
carry  our  belongings  in  a  four-horse 
wagon,  in  which  we  could  also  ride  if 
we  liked,  and  to  have  saddle  horses  be- 
sides. 

Green,  a  man  of  the  region,  was  the 
driver  and  cook,  and  we  had  as  guest  a 
famous  bear  hunter  from  the  Sierra 
Nevadas.  On  the  first  two  days  out 
from  the  little  mountain  town  where 
we  started,  we  saw  many  tracks  of 


black  bear,  which  encouraged  the  hunt- 
ers to  think  that  they  might  find  a 
grizzly  (which,  by  the  way,  they  did 
not). 

The  dust  was  thick  and  red,  envelop- 
ing us  all  day  long  like  some  horrible 
o       insistent  monster  that  had  resolved  it- 

T. 

self  into  atoms  to  choke,  blind  and 
strangle  us.  Nimrod  looked  like  a  clay 
man  —  hair,  eyebrows,  mustache,  skin, 
and  clothes  were  all  one  solid  coating 
of  red  dust.  We  were  all  alike.  Even 
the  sugar,  paper-wrapped  in  the  bot- 
tom of  a  box,  covered  by  other  boxes, 
bags  and  a  canvas,  became  adulterated 
almost  past  use. 

On  the  fourth  day  this  changed,  and 
we  camped  at  the  foot  of  a  granite 
mountain.  It  made  one  think  of  the 
Glass  Mountain  of  fable,  with  its 
smooth  stretches  of  polished  rock  shin- 


ing  in  the  sun.  That  a  human  being 
should  dare  to  take  a  wagon  over  such 
a  place  seemed  incredible.  Yet  there 
the  road  was,  zigzagging  up  the  rocky 
slope,  while  here  and  there  the  jagged 
outlines  of  blasted  rock  showed  where 
the  all-powerful  dynamite  had  been 
used  to  make  a  resting  place  for  strain- 
ing horses. 

That  morning  excitement  surrounded 
our  out-of-door  breakfast  table.  We 
had  had  strange  visitors  during  the 
night,  while  we  slept.  A  mountain 
lion,  the  beautiful  tan-coated  vibrant- 
tailed  puma,  had  nosed  within  ten  feet 
of  rne  and  then,  not  liking  the  camp-fire 
glow  and  unalarmed  by  my  inert  form, 
had  silently  retreated. 

It  made  me  feel  creepy  to  see  how 
easily  that  lithe-limbed  powerful  crea- 
ture might  have  had  me  for  a  midnight 


meal.  But  I  was  not  trying  to  do 
him  harm,  and  so  he  granted  me  the 
same  tolerance.  Then,  too,  not  far 
away  was  a  bear  track,  and  the  canned 
peaches  were  fewer  than  the  night 
before. 

All  of  this  caused  Nimrod  and  the 
bear-hunter  to  saddle  their  horses  early; 
and  agreeing  to  meet  us  at  night  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mountain,  where  the 
map  showed  a  stream,  they  set  out  for  a 
day's  hunt.  Nimrod's  horse  having 
gone  slightly  lame,  I  offered  mine,  a 
swift-footed  intelligent  dear,  and  agreed 
to  ride  in  the  wagon. 

It  was  the  same  old  story.  Virtue 
is  somebody  else's  reward.  I  never 
had  a  worse  day  in  the  mountains. 
Green  and  I  started  blithely  enough  by 
nine,  which  had  meant  a  5:30  rising  in 
the  cold  gray  dawn.  The  horses  had 


been  worked  every  day  since  the  start, 
and  were  jaded. 

We  went  slowly  along  the  only  level 
road  in  our  journey  that  day;  but  the 
load  did  not  seem  to  be  riding  well, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  ascent 
Green  got  out  to  investigate.  He  said 
the  spring  was  out  of  order.  The 
wagon  was  what  is  known  as  a  thor- 
ough-brace, which  means  that  there  are 
two  large  loopy  steel  bands  on  which 
the  wagon  box  rests;  the  loops  are 
filled  in  with  countless  strips  of  leather, 
forming  a  pad  for  the  springs  to  play 
on.  (The  Century  Dictionary  will 
please  not  copy  this  definition.)  The 
Dead  wood  stage  coach  was  a  thorough- 
brace,  I  believe. 

Another  interesting  out-of-date  de- 
tail in  the  construction  of  this  wagon 
was  that  the  brake  had  no  mechanical 


device  for  holding  it  in  position  when 
it  was  put  on  hard,  and  the  driver  had 
to  rely  upon  his  strength  of  limb  to 
keep  it  in  place.  It  seems  that  Green, 
in  pounding  these  bits  of  leather  in  the 
spring,  had  badly  crushed  his  left  hand. 
He  said  nothing  to  me,  and  I  did  not  no- 
tice that,  contrary  to  custom,  he  was  driv- 
ing with  his  right  hand,  which  he  usu- 
ally reserved  for  the  whip  and  the  brake. 
We  crossed  the  shallow  brook  and 
started  up  the  very  steep  and  very  rocky 
road,  when  everything  happened  at 
once.  Two  of  the  horses  refused  to 
pull  and  danced  up  and  down  in  the 
one  spot,  a  sickening  thing  for  a  horse 
to  do.  This  meant  the  instant  applica- 
tion of  the  brake.  We  had  already  be- 
gun to  slip  backward  (the  most  un- 
comfortable sensation  I  know,  barring 
actual  pain).  Nimrod's  horse,  tied  on 


behind,  gave  a  frightened  snort  and 
broke  his  rope.  Green  attempted  to 
take  the  reins  with  his  left  hand.  They 
dropped  from  his  grasp,  and  I  saw  that 
his  ringers  were  purple  and  black. 

"  Grab  the  lines,  can  you  ?  "  he  said, 
as  he  seized  the  whip  and  put  both  feet 
on  the  brake.  The  leaders  were  cur- 
veting back  on  the  wheelers  in  a  way 
which  meant  imminent  mix  up,  their 
legs  over  traces  and  behind  whiffle- 
trees.  On  the  right  of  us  was  solid 
rock  up,  on  the  left  solid  rock  down, 
one  hundred  feet  to  the  stream,  and  just 
ahead  was  the  sharp  turn  the  road  made 
to  a  higher  ledge  in  its  zigzag  up  the 
mountain. 

I  had  always  intended  to  learn  to 
drive  four-in-hand,  but  this  first  lesson 
left  me  no  pleasure  in  the  learning. 
There  were  no  little  triumphs  of  diffi- 


culties  mastered,  no  gentle  surprises,  no 
long,  smooth,  broad,  and  level  stretches 
with  plenty  of  room  to  pull  a  rein  and 
see  what  would  happen.  I  had  to 
spring  into  the  situation  with  know- 
ledge, as  Minerva  did  into  life,  full 
grown.  It  was  no  kindergarten  way  of 
learning  to  drive  four-in-hand. 

I  grabbed  the  reins  in  both  hands. 
There  were  yards  of  them,  rods  of  them, 
miles  of  them  —  they  belonged  to  a  six 
or  sixteen  horse  set.  I  do  not  know 
which.  I  sat  on  them.  They  writhed 
in  my  lap,  wrapped  around  my  feet,  and 
around  the  gun  against  my  knee,  in  a 
hopeless  and  dangerous  muddle.  Of 
course  the  reins  were  twisted.  I  did 
not  know  one  from  the  other.  I  gave 
a  desperate  jerk  which  sent  the  leaders 
plunging  to  the  right,  where  fortunately 
they  brought  up  against  the  rock  wall. 


Had  they  gone  the  other  way  nothing 
but  our  destiny  could  have  saved  us 
from  going  over  the  edge.  Crack  went 
the  whip  in  the  right  place. 

"  Slack  the  lines ! "  Green  cried,  as 
he  eased  the  brake.  A  lash  of  the  whip 
for  each  wheeler,  and  we  started  for- 
ward, the  horses  disentangling  them- 
selves from  the  harness  as  by  a  miracle, 
just  as  the  rear  wheels  were  hovering 
over  the  bluff.  Green  dropped  the 
whip  (his  left  hand  was  quite  useless) 
and  straightened  out  the  reins  for  me. 

"  Can  you  do  it  ?  "  he  asked,  grasping 
the  whip,  as  the  horses  showed  signs  of 
stopping  again.  To  attend  to  the  brake 
was  physically  impossible.  Green  could 
not  do  it  and  drive  with  one  hand. 

"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  but  watch  me  "  —  an 
injunction  scarcely  necessary. 

If  ever  a  woman  put  her  whole  mind 


WE    STARTED    FORWARD,  JUST   AS    THE    REAR   WHEELS   WERE 
HOVERING    OVER    THE    EDGE. 


to  a  thing,  I  did  on  that  four-in-hand. 
There  was  no  place  for  mistakes.  There 
was  no  place  for  anything  but  the  right 
thing,  and  do  it  I  must  or  run  the  risk 
of  breaking  my  very  dusty,  very  brown, 
but  none  the  less  precious  neck. 

A  sharp  turn  in  a  steep  road  with 
rocks  a  foot  high  disputing  the  right 
of  way  with  the  wheels,  a  heavy  load, 
horses  that  do  not  want  to  pull,  and  a 
green  driver  —  that  was  the  situation. 
If  it  does  not  appeal  to  you  as  one  ot 
the  horribles  in  life,  try  it  once. 

"Run  your  leaders  farther  up  the 
bank  —  left,  left !  Get  up,  Milo  !  Frank, 
get  out  of  that!  Now  sharp  to  the 
right.  Whoa!  Steady!  Left  —  left,  I 
say !  Milo,  whoa  !  Now  to  the  right, 
quick !  Let  'em  on  the  bank  more. 
Nellie,  easy  —  whoa  !  Steady,  George  !  " 
Crack  went  the  whip  on  the  leaders. 


n 


"  Hold  your  lines  tighter.  Pull  that 
nigh  leader.  Get  out  of  tbaf,  Frank! 
Now  steady,  boys  I  Don't  pull  —  there  !  " 

Down  went  the  brake ;  we  were  safely 
round  the  turn,  and  all  hands  rested  for 
a  moment. 

Thus  we  worked  all  that  morning, 
Green  with  the  brake,  the  whip,  and  his 
tongue;  I  with  the  lines,  what  strength 
I  had  and  mother  wit  in  lieu  of  ex- 
perience. 

There  were  stretches  of  two  hundred 
feet  of  granite,  smooth  and  polished 
as  a  floor,  where  the  horses  repeatedly 
slipped  and  fell,  and  where  the  wheels 
brought  forth  hollow  mocking  rumbles. 

There  were  sections  where  the  rocky 
ledges  succeeded  one  another  in  steps, 
and  the  animals  had  to  pull  the  heavy 
wagon  up  rises  from  a  foot  to  eighteen 
inches  high  by  sheer  strength  —  as  easy 


"\ 
O 


to  drive  up  a  flight  of  brownstone  steps 
on  Fifth  Avenue.  There  were  places 
between  huge  boulders  where  a  swerve 
of  a  foot  to  the  right  or  to  the  left  would 
have  sent  us  crashing  into  the  unyield- 
ing granite. 

When  we  got  to  the  top  there  was 
no  place  to  rest — only  rock,  rock  every- 
where. No  water,  no  food  for  the  ex- 
hausted horses,  nothing  to  do  but  to 
push  on  to  the  bottom  —  and  such 
going!  Have  you  ever  felt  the  shud- 
dering of  a  wagon  with  brake  hard  on, 
as  it  poised  in  air  the  instant  before  it 
dropped  a  foot  or  two  to  the  next  level, 
from  hard  rock  to  hard  rock'?  Have 
you  ever  tried  to  keep  four  horses 
away  from  under  a  wagon,  and  yet  suf- 
ficiently near  it  not  to  precipitate  the 
crash"?  Have  you  ever  at  the  same 
time  tried  to  keep  them  from  falling 


on  the  rocks  ahead  and  from  plunging 
over  the  bank  as  you  turn  a  sharp 
curve  on  a  steep  down  grade  ?  If  you 
have,  then  you  know  the  nature  of  my 
first  lesson  in  four-in-hand  driving. 

We  got  to  the  bottom  at  dusk.  I 
was  too  tired  to  speak.  Every  muscle 
set  up  a  separate  complaint  and  I  had 
had  nothing  to  eat  since  morning,  as 
we  had  expected  to  make  camp  by 
noon.  The  world  seemed  indeed  a  very 
drab  place.  We  found  the  hunters 
careering  around  searching  for  us.  They 
thought  they  had  missed  us  —  as  they 
had  done  the  bear. 

I  have  driven,  and  been  driven,  hun- 
dreds of  miles  since,  but  there  never 
was  a  ride  like  those  twelve,  cruel, 
mocking,  pitiless  miles  over  Granite 
Mountain,  when  necessity  taught  me  a 
very  pretty  trick,  which,  however,  I 


V 

I 

N 

A 


have  not  yet  been  tempted  to  display 
at  the  Madison  Square  Garden  in  No- 
vember. 


135, 


N 

A 


XVII. 

OUR   MINE. 
32* 


I 

*N 

A 

E* 


XVII. 


T  now  behooves  me  to 
state  that,  between  the 
events  of  the  last  chap- 
ter and  this,  Nimrod 
and  I  heard  the  hum, 
the  wail,  and  the 
shriek  that  make  the  song  of  the 
Westinghouse  brake  before  we  found 
ourselves  deposited  at  the  flourishing 
mining  camp  of  Red  Ridge  in  the 
Arizona  Rockies,  nine  thousand  feet  in 
the  air. 

Did  ever  a  tenderfoot  escape  from 
the  mountains  without  at  least  having 
a  try  at  making  his  or  her  fortune  in 


a  mine  —  gold  one  preferred*?  We, 
of  course,  had  the  chance  of  our  lives, 
and  who  knows  what  might  have  hap- 
pened if  only  the  fat  woman  and  the 
lean  woman  had  not  gotten  jealous  of 
each  other,  and  thereby  wrecked  the 
company  *? 

The  gold  is,  or  is  not,  in  the  fastnesses 
of  the  earth  as  before,  but  where,  oh, 
where,  is  the  lean  woman  of  lineage 
and  the  fat  woman  of  money  *?  The 
lean  woman  had  quality.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  somebody  who  had  done 
something,  but,  unlike  Becky  Sharp,  she 
had  not  been  successful  in  living 
richly  in  San  Francisco  on  nothing  a 
year.  Nobody  knows  whose  daughter 
the  fat  woman  was,  but  in  her  very 
comfortable  home  in  Kansas  that  had 
not  mattered,  and,  besides,  she  had 
saved  a  few  hundreds. 


These    two    women   had    husbands, 
M      who  had  entered  into  a  mining  scheme 
N      together.     The  man  from  Frisco  was  a 
JH     good-looking,  well-educated,  jovial  fel- 
low,  with    the   purses    of  several    rich 
friends   to   back   him  up,  and  with  a 


o  great  desire  to  replenish  his  purse  with 
the  yellow  metal  direct,  rather  than  to 
acquire  it  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 
He  was  many  other  things,  but,  to  be 
brief,  he  was  a  promoter.  The  man 
from  Kansas  had  the  pride  of  the  un- 
educated, and  a  little  money,  and  was 
also  not  averse  to  getting  rich  fast. 

Nimrod,  the  third  partner,  likewise 
encumbered  with  a  wife  on  the  spot, 
desired  to  make  his  everlasting  fortune, 
retire  from  the  painting  of  pictures  and 
the  making  of  books,  and  grub  in  the 
field  of  science  and  live  happily  ever 
after. 


For  two  weeks  we  were  all  together 
at  the  only  hotel  at  Cartersville,  a  ham- 
let of  perhaps  thirty  souls.  It  took 
only  two  weeks  to  wreck  the  company. 
The  mine  was  a  mile  and  a  half  away, 
over  a  very  up-and-down  mountain 
road  which  on  the  first  day  the  fat 
woman  and  I  walked  with  our  hus- 
bands, and  which  Mrs.  Frisco  and  her 
husband  had  travelled  in  Mrs.  Kansas' 
phaeton  —  the  result  of  a  little  way  Mrs. 
Frisco  had  of  getting  the  best. 

Three  days  of  this  calm  appropria- 
tion of  her  carriage  while  she  walked 
ruffled  Mrs.  Kansas'  temper.  When 
she  heard  a  rumour  that  Mrs.  Frisco 
had  stated  disdainfully  to  the  landlady 
that  there  could  be  no  thought  of  rec- 
ognising Mrs.  Kansas  socially,  but  that 
she  must  be  tolerated  because  of  her 
money  in  the  enterprise,  her  politeness 


grew  frigid  and  the  trouble  began  to 
brew. 

While  perfectly  willing  to  watch  the 
logomachy  when  it  should  arrive,  I  had 
no  wish  to  take  part.  I  was  willing  to 
make  money,  but  not  to  make  enemies, 
so  Nimrod  and  I  removed  ourselves  as 
much  as  possible  from  the  Cartersville 
Hotel,  took  long  walks  and  rides  over 
the  glorious  Chihuahua  Mountains, 
poked  around  the  abandoned  mines, 
spied  out  the  deer  and  mountain  lion 
and  the  ubiquitous  coyote  and  all  the 
indigenous  beasts  and  birds  of  the  air 
thereof.  We  usually  managed  to  ar- 
rive at  the  mine  when  the  partners  and 
their  wives  were  elsewhere. 

The  mine,  our  mine,  was  a  long  hori- 
zontal hole  in  the  mountain,  with  a 
tiny  leaf-choked  stream  trickling  past 
the  entrance,  heavy  timbers  propping 


up  the  inert  mass  of  dirt  and  stone  just 
above  our  heads,  piles  of  uninteresting 
rock  dumped  to  one  side,  the  "pay 
dirt."  I  had  seen  such  things  before, 
and  they  had  said  nothing  to  me.  But 
this  was  our  mine,  our  stream,  our  dump. 

McCaffrey,  the  foreman,  put  rubber 
boots  on  me  in  the  little  smithy  which 
formed  a  part  of  the  entrance  of  the 
tunnel,  and  thus  equipped  I  entered 
the  tunnel.  The  day  shift,  represented 
by  two  dancing  lights  far  off  in  the 
blackness,  was  preparing  to  blast. 

I  advanced  uncertainly,  my  own  can- 
dle blinding  me.  Water  trickled  from 
the  roof  and  walls  of  this  rock-bound 
passage  seven  feet  high  and  four  feet 
wide.  A  stream  of  it  flowed  by  the 
tiny  tram  track.  The  hollow  sound  of 
the  mallet  on  the  crowbar  forcing  its 
way  into  the  stubborn  wall  grew  louder 


as  we  approached,  until  we  stood  with 
the  miners  in  a  foot  or  so  of  water 
which  showed  yellow  and  shining  in 
the  flickering  light  of  four  candles. 
Then  we  went  back  to  the  smithy  to 
wait  the  result  of  the  blast. 

There  was  a  horrid  jarring  booming 
sound.  The  miners  listened  intently. 
McCaffrey  said,  "  One."  Another  ex- 
plosion in  the  tunnel  followed  — 
"Two."  Another  — "Three."  Then  a 
silence.  "That's  bad,"  said  McCaff- 
rey, shaking  his  head.  "An  unex- 
ploded  cap." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  There  were  four  charges  and  should 
have  been  four  explosions.  It's  liable 
to  go  off  when  we  go  in  there." 

"  Oh ! "  I  said. 

The  miners  waited  a  while  for  the 
fumes  of  the  dynamite  to  be  dissipated 


and    kept   me   away  from   the  tunnel 
mouth,  saying: 

"  If  you   ever  get  a  dynamite  head- 
ache you  will  never  want  to  come  near 
the  mine  again.     And,  besides,  that  un-       p 
exploded  cap  may  do  damage  yet." 

I  went  back  to  the  smithy  to  wait,  for  8 
it  was  the  last  of  October,  and  snow  in 
the  mountains  at  ten  thousand  feet  is 
cold.  I  attempted  to  sit  down  on  a  keg 
behind  the  little  sheet-iron  stove,  which 
was  nearly  red  hot. 

"You  better  not  sit  down  on  that 
kaig,"  said  one  of  the  men  calmly, 
without  pausing  in  his  work. 

"Why1?" 

"Well,  it's  dirty,  and,  besides,  it's 
nitro-glycerine." 

"  Nitro-glycerine  !  Why  is  it  in  here, 
and  so  close  to  the  stove  ?  Won't  it 
explode?"  and  I  checked  a  desire  to 
retreat  in  disorder. 


"YOU    BETTER    NOT    SIT    DOWN    ON    THAT    KAIG 
IT'S    NITROGLYCERINE." 


"  No,  't'ain't  no  danger,  if  it  don't  get 
too  hot  and  ain't  jarred.  You  see,  it 
won't  go  off  if  it's  too  cold,  so  we  keep 
a  little  in  here  and  kind  o'  watch  it." 

The  keg  was  within  two  feet  of  the 
stove.  Suppose  that  a  dog  or  some- 
thing were  to  knock  it  over !  But 
miners  do  not  suppose. 

Just  then  a  tremendous  explosion  in 
the  tunnel  seemed  to  make  the  whole 
earth  vibrate.  It  was  followed  by  a 
rattling  and  crashing  of  rocks,  which 
told  us  that  the  last  cap  had  gone  off 
and  had  done  good  work. 

Half  an  hour  later,  when  it  was 
safe  from  dynamite  fumes,  I  went  back 
to  our  hole  in  the  ground.  Nimrod  had 
left  me,  lured  away  by  some  fox  tracks 
trailing  up  the  mountain.  The  weird 
scene  was  too  interesting  for  me  to 
leave  until  the  arrival  of  the  fat  and 
lean  women  (Mrs.  Frisco  had  persuaded 


Mrs.  Kansas  to  drive  her  over)  caused 
me  to  remember  that  the  parlour  fire  at 
the  Cartersville  Hotel  must  be  very 
comfortable,  and  that  it  was  a  mile  and 
a  half  of  tiresome  snow  away. 

Evidently  the  wives  of  my  husband's 
partners  had  disagreed  on  the  way, 
for  the  air  was  electric  as  they  greeted 
me,  and  to  avoid  another  tete-a-tete 
they  at  once  turned  to  accompany  me 
out  of  the  tunnel.  I  was  the  last. 

The  scene  was  now  properly  set  for 
a  mining  accident,  so  there  was  nothing 
for  a  self  respecting  tunnel  to  do  but  to 
act  accordingly,  which  it  did.  Just  as 
the  fat  woman  and  the  lean  woman 
passed  into  the  open  air,  and  I  was 
nearly  at  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  it 
caused  its  roof  to  cave  in  so  close 
behind  me  that,  had  I  not  instinctively 
rushed  out,  some  of  the  flying  stones, 


THE    TUNNEL    CAUSED    ITS    UOOF    TO    CAVE    IN    CLOSE    BEHIND    WE. 


timbers,  and  dirt  must  have  knocked 
me  to  the  ground. 

As  it  was,  I  landed  sprawling  in  the 
snow  outside,  sweeping  the  lean  woman 
down  with  me.  It  was  very  like  a  dime 
novel.  Three  lone  women  who,  for 
purposes  of  intensification,  may  be 
called  enemies,  staring  with  white  faces 
at  a  wall  of  dirt,  and  trying  to  realise 
that  a  minute  before  it  had  been  a  black 
hole.  And  at  the  other,  end  of  that 
hole  now  were  two  men  horribly  im- 
prisoned in  a  rock-walled  tomb  with- 
out air  or  food,  perhaps  dead.  We 
could  not  tell  how  much  of  a  cave-in 
it  was. 

The  lean  woman  rushed  for  Mrs. 
Kansas'  horse  and  wagon  and  went  to 
alarm  the  hamlet.  I  dashed  up  the  hill 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  awaken  the  night 
shift,  who  were  in  their  cabin  sleeping. 


And  the  fat  woman  at  a  safe  distance 
wrung  her  hands  and  uttered  exclama- 
tions of  horror  and  ill  judged  advice  to 
our  departing  forms. 

Between  the  fright,  the  altitude,  and 
the  hill  I  had  no  breath  left  to  speak 
with  as  I  pounded  on  the  door  of  the 
miner's  hut.  Mountaineers  sleep  lightly 
and  do  not  make  toilets,  so  it  was 
barely  ten  minutes  from  the  time  of  the 
cave-in  when  three  men  were  working 
at  the  tunnel's  mouth  with  pickaxes 
and  shovels. 

The  tunnel  had  not  meant  to  be  ma- 
licious, but  merely  to  do  the  proper 
thing  (it  had  not  even  disturbed  the 
nitro-glycerine  in  the  smithy).  Not 
much  earth  had  fallen,  and  in  less  than 
an  hour  we  heard  the  shouts  of  the 
imprisoned  men;  in  two  hours  they 
crawled  into  the  air  unhurt,  and  soon 


were  helping  the  others  to  shore  up  the 
treacherous  entrance,  so  that  such  a 
stirring  thing  could  not  happen  again. 

There  is  not  much  more  to  tell.  I 
believe  that  the  tunnel  is  still  there,  bor- 
ing its  way  into  the  heart  of  the  moun- 
tain, where,  perhaps,  the  lovely  yellow 
gold  is;  but  we  no  longer  refer  to  it 
as  ours,  and  Nimrod  still  has  to  work 
for  our  daily  jam.  For  the  insolence  ot 
Mrs.  Frisco  in  leaving  Mrs.  Kansas 
stranded  in  the  snow  and  obliging  her 
to  walk  home  on  the  cave-in  day  de- 
veloped the  brewing  storm  into  such 
proportions  that  the  next  day  their  hus- 
bands did  not  speak  as  we  gathered 
round  the  morning  coffee.  And  the 
Kansases  moved  away  into  one  of  the 
other  five  houses  in  Cartersville.  Mr. 
Kansas  was  not  "going  to  see  his  wife 
insulted  by  an  upstart  —  not  he:  he'd 


soon  show  them,"  and  he  did  so  effec- 
tively that  the  Red  Ridge  Mining  Com- 
pany was  soon  no  more.  We  docketed 
our  golden  dreams  *  unusable,'  stowed 
them  away,  and  returned  with  tranquil 
minds,  if  lighter  purse,  to  milder  and 
slower  ways  of  getting  rich. 


I 

Of 

XT 
I 

j 
§ 


XVIII. 
THE    LAST  WORD. 

29) 


XVIII. 

OW  this  is  the  end. 
It  is  three  years  since 
I  first  became  a  wo- 
man-who-goes-hunting- 
with-her-husband.  I 
have  lived  on  jerked 
deer  and  alkali  water,  and  bathed  in 
dark-eyed  pools,  nestling  among  vast 
pines  where  none  but  the  four  footed 
had  been  before.  I  have  been  sung 
asleep  a  hundred  times  by  the  coyotes' 
evening  lullaby,  have  felt  the  spell  of 
their  wild  nightly  cry,  long  and  mourn- 
ful, coming  just  as  the  darkness  has 
fully  come,  lasting  but  a  few  seconds, 


and  then  heard  no  more  till  the  night 
gives  place  to  the  fresh  sheet  of  dawn. 
I  have  pored  in  the  morning  over  the 
big  round  footprints  of  a  mountain  lion 
where  he  had  sneaked  in  hours  of  dark- 
ness, past  my  saddle  pillowed  head.  I 
have  hunted  much,  and  killed  a  little, 
the  wary,  the  beautiful,  the  fleet-footed 
big  game.  I  have  driven  a  four-in-hand 
over  corduroy  roads  and  ridden  horse- 
back over  the  pathless  vasty  wilds  of 
the  continent's  backbone. 

I  have  been  nearly  frozen  eleven 
thousand  feet  in  air  in  blinding  snow, 
I  have  baked  on  the  Dakota  plains 
with  the  thermometer  at  116  degrees, 
and  I  have  met  characters  as  diverse  as 
the  climate.  I  know  what  it  means  to 
be  a  miner  and  a  cowboy,  and  have 
risked  my  life  when  need  be,  but,  best 
of  all,  I  have  felt  the  charm  of  the 


glorious  freedom,  the  quick  rushing 
blood,  the  bounding  motion,  of  the 
wild  life,  the  joy  of  the  living  and  of 
the  doing,  of  the  mountain  and  the 
plain ;  I  have  learned  to  know  and  feel 
some,  at  least,  of  the  secrets  of  the  Wild 
Ones.  In  short,  though  I  am  still  a 
woman  and  may  be  tender,  I  am  a 
Woman  Tenderfoot  no  longer. 


DATE  DUE 


CAYLOND 


